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UNCLE WIGGILY’S 
ADVENTURES 


By 

HOWARD R. GAR IS 

it 

Author of ” Sammie and Susie Littletail**Johnnie and Billie 
Bushytatl “ Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble,” 

“Jackie and Peetie Bow-Wow,” “Those Smith 
Boys,” “The Island Boys,” etc . 




Illustrations by 


LOUIS WISA 


R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 

18 East Seventeenth Street :: :: New York 





CHILDREN’S BOOKS 
By HOWARD R. GARIS 
THE BEDTIME STORIES SERIES 
EIGHT COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS 
Price 75 cents each, postpaid 

SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL 
31 Rabbit Stories 

JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL 
31 Squirrel Stories 
LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE 

WIBBLEWOBBLE 
31 Duck Stories 

JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW-WOW 
31 Dog Stories 

Other volumes in preparation 


THE UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES 
EIGHT COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS 
Price 75 cents each, Postpaid 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES 
31 of the Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS 

31 More Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories 


BOY’S BOOKS 

THOSE SMITH BOYS SERIES 
FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
Price 7 5 cents each, postpaid 

THE SMITH BOYS 

Or, The Mystery of the Thumbless Man 
THOSE SMITH BOYS ON THE DIAMOND 
Or, Nip and Tuck for Victory 

THE ISLAND BOYS SERIES 
FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
Price 75 cents each, postpaid 

THE ISLAND BOYS , \ 

Or, Fun and Adventure^on Lake Modoc 

Other volumes tn preparation 


Copyright, 1912 By 
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
Uncle Wiggily's Adventures 

t CI.A320766 


tlo 

.3 

.Gfl*s 









UNCLE WIGGILY’S 
ADVENTURES 


STORY I 

UNCLE WIGGILY STARTS OFF 

U NCLE WIGGILY LONGEARS, the nice old 
gentleman rabbit, hopped out of bed one 
morning and started to go to the window, 
to see if the sun was shining. But, no sooner had 
he stepped on the floor, than he cried out: 

“Oh! Ouch! Oh, dear me and a potato pancake! 
Oh, I believe I stepped on a tack! Sammie Little- 
tail must have left it there! How careless of him !” 

You see this was the same Uncle Wiggily, of 
whom I have told you in the Bedtime Books—the 
very same Uncle Wiggily. He was an Uncle to 
Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, 
and also to Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the squir¬ 
rel boys, and to Alice and Lulu and Jimmie Wibble- 
wobble, the duck children, and I have written for 
9 





Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


you, books about all tliose characters. Now I 
thought I would write something just about Uncle 
Wiggily himself, though of course I’ll tell you what 
all his nephews and nieces did, too. 

Well, when Uncle Wiggily felt that sharp pain, 
he stood still for a moment, and wondered what 
could have happened. 

“Yes, I’m almost sure it was a tack,” he said. “I 
must pick it up so no one else will step on it.” 

So Uncle Wiggily looked on the floor, but there 
was no tack there, only some crumbs from a sugar 
cookie that Susie Littletail had been eating the 
night before, when her uncle had told her a go-to- 
sleep story. jp 

“Oh, I know what it was; it must have been my 
rheumatism that gave me the pain!” said the old 
gentleman rabbit as he looked for his red, white 
and blue crutch, striped like a barber pole. He 
found it under the bed, and then he managed to 
limp to the window. Surely enough, the sun was 
shining. 

“I’ll certainly have to do something about this 
rheumatism,” said Uncle Wiggily as he carefully 
shaved himself by looking in the glass. “I guess 
I’ll see Dr. Possum.” 

So after breakfast, when Sammie and Susie had 
gone to school, Dr. Possum was telephoned for, and 
he called to see Uncle Wiggily. 

10 



Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


“Ha! Hum!” exclaimed the doctor, looking very 
wise. “Yon have the rheumatism very bad, Mr. 
Longears.” 

“Why, I knew that before yon came/’ said the 
old gentleman rabbit, blinking his eyes. “What I 
want is something to cure it.” 

“Ha! Hum!” said Dr. Possum, again looking 
very wise. “I think you need a change of air. You 
must travel about. Go on a journey, get out and 
see strange birds, and pick the pretty flowers. You 
don’t get exercise enough.” 

“Exercise enough!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Why, 
my goodness me sakes alive and a bunch of lilacs! 
I)011% I play checkers almost every night with 
Grandfather Goosey Gander?” 

“That is not enough,” said the doctor, “you must 
travel here and there, and see things.” 

“Very well,” said Uncle Wiggily, “then I will 
travel. I’ll pack my valise at once, and I’ll go off 
and seek my fortune, and maybe, on the way, I can 
lose this rheumatism.” 

So the next day Uncle Wiggily started out with 
his crutch, and his valise packed full of clean 
clothes, and something in it to eat. 

“Oh, we are very sorry to have you go, dear 
uncle,” said Susie Littletail, “but we hope you’ll 
come back good and strong.” 

11 



Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


“Thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he kissed 
the two rabbit children and their mamma, and 
shook hands with Papa Littletail. Then off the old 
gentleman bunny hopped with his crutch. 

Well, he went along for quite a distance, over the 
hills, and down the road, and through the woods, 
and, as the sun got higher and warmer, his rheu¬ 
matism felt better. 

“I do believe Dr. Possum was right!” said Uncle 
Wiggily. “Traveling is just the thing for me,” and 
he felt so very jolly that he whistled a little tune 
about a peanut wagon, which roasted lemonade, 
and boiled and frizzled Easter eggs that Mrs. Cluk- 
Cluk laid. 

“Ha! Where are you going?” suddenly asked a 
voice, as Uncle Wiggily finished the tune. 

“I’m going to seek my fortune,” replied .Uncle 
Wiggily. “Who are you, pray?” 

“Oh, I’m a friend of yours,” said the voice, and 
Uncle Wiggily looked all around, but he couldn’t 
discover any one. 

“But where are you?” the puzzled old gentleman 
rabbit wanted to know. “I can’t see you.” 

“No, and for a very good reason,” answered the 
voice. “You see I have very weak eyes, and if I 
came out in the sun, without my smoked glasses on, 
I might get blind. So I have to hide down in this 
hollow stump.” 


12 



.Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


“Then put on your glasses and come out where 
I can see you,” invited the old gentleman rabbit, 
and all the while he was trying to remember where 
he had heard that voice before. At first he thought 
it might be Grandfather Goosey Gander, or Uncle 
Butter, the goat, yet it didn’t sound like either of 
them. 

“I have sent my glasses to the store to be fixed, 
so I can’t wear them and come out,” went on the 
voice. “But if you are seeking your fortune I know 
the very place where you can find it.” 

“Where?” asked Uncle Wiggily, eagerly. 

“Right down in this hollow stump,” was the reply. 
“There are all kinds of fortunes here, and you 
may take any kind you like Mr. Longears.” 

“Ha! That is very nice,” thought the rabbit. 
“I have not had to travel far before finding my for¬ 
tune. I wonder if there is a cure for rheumatism 
in that stump, too?” So he asked about it. 

“Of course, your rheumatism can be cured in 
here,” came the quick answer. “In fact, I guaran¬ 
tee to cure any disease—measles, chicken-pox, 
mumps and even toothache. So if you have any 
friends you want cured send them to me.” 

“I wish I could find out who you were,” spoke 
the rabbit. “I seem to know your voice, but I can’t 
think of your name.” 

“Oh, you’ll know me as soon as you see me,” said 
13 



Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


the voice. “Just hop down inside this hollow 
stump, and your fortune is as good as made, and 
your rheumatism will soon be gone. Hop right 
down.” 

Well, Uncle Wiggily didn’t like the looks of the 
black hole down inside the stump, and he peered 
into it to see what he could see, but it was so black 
that all he could make out was something like a 
lump of coal. 

“Well, Dr. Possum said I needed to have a change 
of scene, and some adventures,” said the rabbit, 
“so I guess I’ll chance it. I’ll go down, and per¬ 
haps I may find my fortune.” 

Then, carefully holding his crutch and his 
satchel, Uncle Wiggily hopped down inside the 
Stump. He felt something soft, and furry, and 
fuzzy, pressing close to him, and at first he thought 
he had bumped into Dottie or Willie Lambkin. 

But then, all of a sudden, a harsh voice cried out: 

“Ha! Now I have you! I was just wishing 
some one would come along with my dinner, and 
you did! Get in there, and see if you can find your 
fortune, Uncle Wiggily!” And with that what 
should happen but that big, black bear, who had 
been hiding in the stump, pushed Uncle Wiggily 
into a dark closet, and locked the door! And there 
the poor rabbit was, and the bear was getting ready 
to eat him up. 


14 



Uncle Wiggily Starts Off 


But don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get him out, 
and in case we have ice cream pancakes for sapper 
I’ll tell you, in the next story, how Uncle Wiggily 
got out of the bear’s den, and how he went fishing 
—I mean Uncle Wiggily went fishing, not the bear. 



STORY II 


UNCLE WIGGILY GOES FISHING 

A T FIRST, after lie found himself shut up 
in the bear’s dark closet, where we left 
him in the story before this, poor Uncle 
Wiggily didn’t know what to think. He just sat 
there, on the edge of a chair, and he tried to look 
around, and see something, buf it was too black, 
so he couldn’t. 

“Perhaps this is only a joke,” thought the old 
gentleman rabbit, “though I never knew a black 
bear to joke before. But perhaps it is. I’ll ask 
him.” 

So Uncle Wiggily called out: 

“Is this a joke, Mr. Bear?” 

“Not a bit of it!” was the growling answer. 
“You’ll soon see what’s going to happen to you! 
I’m getting the fire ready now.” 

“Getting the fire ready for what; the adventure, 
or for my fortune?” asked the rabbit, for he still 
hoped the bear was only joking with him. 

“Ready to cook you!” was the reply. “That’s 
16 


Uncle Wiggily Goes Fishing 


what the fire is for!” and the bear gnashed his teeth 
together something terrible, and, with his sharp 
claws, he clawed big splinters off the stump, and 
with them he started the fire in the stove, with the 
splinters, I mean, not his claws. 

The blazing fire made it a little brighter in the 
hollow stump, which was the black bear’s den, and 
Uncle Wiggily could look out of a crack in the 
door, and see what a savage fellow the shaggy bear 
was. You see, that bear just hid in the stump, 
waiting for helpless animals to come along, and 
then he’d trick them into jumping down* inside of 
it, and there wasn’t a word of truth about him 
having sore eyes, or about him having to wear dark 
spectacles, either. 

“Oh, my! I guess this is the end of my adven¬ 
tures,” thought the rabbit. “I should have been 
more careful. Well, I wish I could see Sammie 
and Susie before he eats me, but I’m afraid I can’t. 
I shouldn’t have jumped down here.” 

But as Uncle Wiggily happened to think of 
Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, he also thought 
of something else. And this was that Sammie had 
put something in the old gentleman rabbit’s valise 
that morning, before his uncle had started off. 

“If you ever get into trouble, Uncle Wiggily,” 
Sammie had said, “this may come in useful for 
you.” Uncle Wiggily didn’t look at the time to see 
17 



Uncle Wiggily Goes Fishing 


what it was that his nephew put in the valise, but 
he made up his mind he would do so now. So he 
opened his satchel, and there, among other things, 
was a long piece of thin, but strong rope. And 
pinned to it was a note which read: 

“Dear Uncle Wiggily. This is good to help you 
get out of a window, in case of fire.” 

“My goodness!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, “that’s 
fine. There the bear is making a fire to cook me, 
and with this rope I can get away from it. Now if 
there’s only a window in this closet I’m all right.” 

So he looked, and sure enough there was a win¬ 
dow. And with his crutch Uncle Wiggily raised it. 
Then he threw out his satchel, and he tied the rope 
to a hook on the window sill, and, being a strong 
old gentleman, he crawled out of the window, and 
slid down the cord. 

And Uncle Wiggily got out just as the bear 
opened the closet door to grab him, and put him 
in the pot, and when the savage black creature saw 
his fine rabbit dinner getting away he was as angry 
as anything, really he was. 

“Here! Come back here!” cried the bear, but of 
course Uncle Wiggily knew better than to come 
back. He slid down the rope to the ground, and 
then he cut off as much of the rope as he could, 
and put it in his pocket, for he didn’t know when 
he might need it again. Then, catching up his 
18 



Uncle Wiggily Goes Fishing 


valise, he ran on and on, before the bear could get 
to him. 

It was still quite a dark place in which Uncle 
Wiggily was, for you see he was underground, down 
by the roots of the stump. But he looked ahead 
and he saw a little glimmer of light, and then he 
knew he could get out. 

Limping on his crutch, and carrying his valise, 
he went on and on, and pretty soon he came out of 
a dark cave and found himself on the bank of a 
nice little brook, that was running over mossy, 
green stones. 

“Ha! This is better than being in a bear’s den!” 
exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit. “My, I was so 
frightened that I forgot about my rheumatism 
hurting me. That w T as an adventure all right, and 
Sammie was a good boy to think of that strong 
cord. Now what shall I do next?” 

Well, Uncle Wiggily sat down on the bank of the 
brook, and he looked in the water. Then he hap¬ 
pened to see a fish jump up to catch a bug, so he 
said to himself: 

“I guess I will go fishing, just for fun. But if 
I do happen to catch any fish I’ll put them right 
back in the water again. For I don’t need any fish, 
as I have some lettuce and cabbage sandwiches, and 
some peanut-butter cakes, that Susie’s mamma put 
up in a cracker-box for me.” 

19 



Uncle Wiggily Goes Fishing 


Well, Uncle Wiggily looked in liis valise, to make 
sure liis luncli was safe, and then, taking a bent 
pin from under liis vest, lie fastened it to a part of 
the string Sarnmie had given him. Then he fast¬ 
ened the string to a pole, and he was ready to fish, 
but he needed something to make the fishes bite— 
that is, bite the pinhook, not bite him, you know. 

“Ok, I guess they’ll like a bit of sweet cracker, 
Uncle Wiggily thought; so he put some on the end 
of the pin-hook, and threw it toward the water. 

It fell in with a splash, and made a lot of little 
circles, like ring-around the rosies, and the rabbit 
sat there looking at them, sort of nodding, and half 
asleep and wondering what adventure would hap¬ 
pen to him next, and where he would stay that 
night. All of a sudden he felt something tugging 
at the hook and line. 

“Oh, I’ve got a fish! I’ve got a fish!” he cried, 
as he lifted up the pole. Up out of the water with 
a sizzling rush flew the string and the sweet cracker 
bait, and the next minute out leaped the big, sav¬ 
age alligator that had escaped from a circus. 

“Oh, ho! So you tried to catch me, eh?” the 
alligator shouted at Uncle Wiggily. 

“No—no, if you please,” said the rabbit. “I was 
after fish.” 

“And I’m after you!” cried the alligator, and, 
scrambling up the bank, he made a jump for Uncle 
20 



Uncle Wiggily Goes Fishing 


Wiggily, and with one sweep of his kinky, scaly 
tail he flopped and he threw the old gentleman rab¬ 
bit and his crutch and valise right up into a big 
tree that grew near the l^rook. 

“There you’ll stay until I get ready to eat you!” 
exclaimed the alligator, as he stood up on the end 
of his tail under the tree, and opened his mouth 
as wide as he could so that if Uncle Wiggily fell 
down he’d fall into it, just like down a funnel, you 
know. 

Well, the poor gentleman rabbit clung to the top¬ 
most tree branch, wondering how in the world he 
was going to escape from the alligator. Oh, it was 
a dreadful position to be in! 

But please don’t worry or stay awake over it, 
for I’ll find a way to get him down safely. And in 
the story after this, if the milkman doesn’t leave us 
sour cream for our lemonade, I’ll tell you about 
Uncle Wiggily and the black crow. 


21 



STORY III 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BLACK CROW 

L ET me see, where did I leave off in the last 
story? Oh! I remember. It was about 
Uncle Wiggily Longears being up in the 
top of the tall tree, and the alligator keeping guard 
down below, ready to eat him. 

Well, the old gentleman rabbit was w r ondering 
how he could ever escape, and he felt quite badly 
about it. 

“I guess this is the end of my adventures,” he 
said to himself. “It would have been much better 
had I stayed at home with Sammie and Susie.” 
And as he thought of the two rabbit children he felt 
still sadder, and very lonely. 

“I wonder if Susie could have put anything in 
my satchel with which to scare an alligator,” 
thought Uncle Wiggily. “I guess I’ll look.” So 
he looked, and what should he find but a bottle of 
toothache drops. Yes, there it was, and wrapped 
around it was a little note Susie had written. 
“Dear Uncle Wiggily,” she said in the note, “if 
22 


Uncle Wiggily and tlie Black Crow 


you ever get the toothache on your travels, this will 
stop it.” 

“Ha! That is very kind of Susie, I’m sure,” said 
the rabbit, “but I don’t see how that is going to 
make the alligator go away. And, even if he does 
go, I wonder how I’m to get down out of this tall 
tree, with my crutch, my valise and my rheuma¬ 
tism?” 

Well, just then the alligator got tired of stand¬ 
ing on the end of his tail, with his mouth open, and 
he began crawling around. Then he thought of 
what a good supper he was going to have of Uncle 
Wiggily, and that alligator said: 

“I guess I’ll sharpen my teeth so I can eat him 
better,” and with that the savage and unpleasant 
creature began to gnaw on a stone, to sharpen his 
teeth. Then he stood up on the end of his tail once 
more, under the tree, and opened his mouth as wide 
as he could. 

“Come on.now!” he called to Uncle Wiggily. 
“Jump down and have it over with.” 

“Oh, but I don’t want to,” objected the rabbit. 

“You’ll have to, whether you want to or not,” 
went on the alligator. “If you don’t come down, 
I’ll take my scaly, naily tail, and I’ll saw down the 
tree, and then you’ll fall.” 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “What 
shall I do?” 


23 



Uncle Wiggily and the Black Crow 


Then lie happened to think of the bottle of tooth¬ 
ache medicine that he held in his hand, and, taking 
out the cork, he dropped the bottle, medicine and 
all, right into the open mouth of the alligator, who 
was again up on his tail. 

And the alligator thought it was Uncle Wiggily 
falling into his jaws, and he shut them quickly 
like a steel trap and chewed on that bottle of hot 
toothache drops before he knew what it was. 

Well, you can just imagine what happened. The 
medicine was as hot as pepper and mustard and 
vinegar and cloves and horse radish all made into 
one! My! how it did burn that alligator’s mouth. 

“Oh my! I’m shot! I’m poisoned! I’m bitten 
'by a mosquito! I’m stabbed! I’m all scrambled 
up” cried the alligator. “Water, water, quick! I 
must have water!” 

Then he gave a big jump, and, with his kinkery- 
scalery tail, he leaped into a big puddle of water, 
and went away down in under, out of sight, to cool 
off his mouth. 

“Oh, now is my chance! If I could only get down 
out of the tree!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “But 
with my rheumatism I’m afraid I’ll fall. Oh dear! 
What shall I do?” 

“Don’t be afraid, I’ll help you!” exclaimed a kind 
voice, and then the voice went on: “Caw! Caw! 

24 



Uncle Wiggily and the Black Crow 


Caw!” and Uncle Wiggily, looking up, saw a big 
black crow perched on a limb over his head. 

“Oh, how do you do!” spoke Uncle Wiggily, mak¬ 
ing a bow as well as he could. “Can yon really 
help me down?’ 

“Yes,” said the crow, “I can. Wait until I get 
my market basket. I was just going to the grocery, 
but I’m in no hurry. I ? ll save you first.” 

So that crow flew off, and in a moment he came 
back with a big basket in its bill. 

“Hop in!” the black crow called to Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, “ and I’ll fly down to the ground with you, 
and you can run off before the alligator comes out 
of the water. I saw what you did to him with those 
toothache drops, and it served him right. Come on, 
hop in the basket.” 

So Uncle Wiggily got in the basket, and the crow, 
taking the handle in his strong beak, flew safely to 
the ground with him. And that’s how the old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit got down out of the tree, just as I 
told you he would. 

So he and the crow walked on some distance 
through the woods together, after Uncle Wiggily 
had picked up his crutch and valise, which had 
fallen out of the basket, and they got safely away 
before the alligator came out of the water. And 
wasn’t he the provoked old beastie, though, when 
he saw that his rabbit supper was gone? 

25 



Uncle Wiggily and tlie Black Crow 


“Where are you going?” asked the crow of Uncle 
Wiggily, after a bit, when they got to a nice big 
stone, and sat down for a rest. 

“I am seeking my fortune,” replied the old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit, “and trying to get better of my rheu¬ 
matism. Dr. Possum told me to travel, and have 
adventures, and I’ve had quite a few already.” 

“Well, I hope you find your fortune and that it 
turns out to be a very good one,” said the kind 
crow. “But it is coming on night now. Have you 
any place to stay?” 

“No,” replied the rabbit, “I haven’t. I never 
thought about that. What shall I do?” 

“Oh, don’t worry,” said the crow. “I’d let you 
stay in my nest, but it is up a high tree, and you 
would have trouble climbing in and out. But near 
my nest-house is an old hollow stump, and you can 
stay in that very nicely.” 

“Are there any bears in it?” asked Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, careful-like. 

“Oh, no; not a one. It is very safe.” 

So the crow showed Uncle Wiggily where the 
hollow stump was, and he slept there all night, on 
a soft bed of leaves. And when he awakened in the 
morning he had breakfast with the crow and once 
more started off to seek his fortune. 

Well, pretty soon, in a short while, not so very 
long, he came to a little house made of bark, stand- 
26 



Uncle Wiggily and the Black Crow 


ing in the middle of a deep, dark, dismal woods. 
And on the door of the house was a sign which 
read: 

“If you want to be surprised, open this door and 
come in.” \ 

“Perhaps I can find my fortune in there, and get 
rid of the rheumatism,” thought Uncle Wiggily, so 
he hopped forward. And just as he did so he heard 
a voice calling to him: 

“Don’t go in! Don’t go in there, Uncle Wiggily!” 

The rabbit looked up, and saw Johnnie Bushy- 
tail, the squirrel boy, waving his paws at him. 
Well, Uncle Wiggily started to jump back away 
from the door of the little house, but it was too late. 
Out came a scraggily-raggily claw, which grabbed 
him, while a voice cried out: 

“Ah, ha! Now I have you! Come right in!” 

And then, before you could shake a stick at a 
bad dog, the door was slammed shut and locked, 
and there Uncle Wiggily was inside the house, and 
Johnnie Bushytail was crying outside. 

“That’s the end of poor Uncle Wiggily!” said 
Johnnie. But it wasn’t. For I’ll not leave the old 
gentleman rabbit alone in the house with that 
clawy creature. And in the next story, providing 
27 



Uncle Wiggily and the Black Crow 


our wash lady doesn’t put my new straw hat in the 
soap suds, and take all the color out of the ribbon, 
I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip- 
Flop. 


28 



STORY IV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND FIDO FLIP-FLOP 

W ELL, as soon as Uncle Wiggily found him¬ 
self inside the bear’s den—oh, just listen 
to me! That was in the other story, 
wasn’t it? Yes, we left him in the funny little 
house in the woods, with the clawy creature grab¬ 
bing him. 

Now, what do you suppose that clawy creature 
was? Why, a great, big owl, to be sure, with round, 
staring, yellow eyes, and he had grabbed Uncle 
Wiggily in his claws, and pulled him inside the 
house. 

“Now, I’ve got you!” cried the owl. “I was just 
wishing some one would come along, and you did. 
Some of my friends are coming to tea this after¬ 
noon, and you’ll do very nicely made up into sand¬ 
wiches.” 

Wasn’t that a perfectly dreadful way to talk 
about our Uncle Wiggily? Well, I guess yes! 

“Now you’re here, make yourself at home,” went 
on the owl, sarcastic-like, as he locked the front 
29 


Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip-Flop 


door and put tlie key in liis pocket. “Did you see 
the sign?” 

“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I did. But I don’t 
call it fair. I thought I would find my fortune in 
here.” 

“The sign says you’ll be surprised, and I guess 
you are surprised, aren’t you?” asked the owl. 

“Yes,” answered the rabbit, “very much so. But 
I’d rather have a nice surprise party, with peanuts 
and lemonade, than this.” 

“No matter,” said the owl, snapping his beak 
like a pair of shears, “here you are and here you’ll 
stay! My friends will soon arrive. I’ll now put 
the kettle on, to boil for tea.” 

Well, poor Uncle Wiggily didn’t know what to 
do. He couldn’t look in his valise to see if there 
was anything in it by which he might escape, for he 
had dropped the satchel outside when the owl 
grabbed him, and he only had his barber-pole 
crutch. 

“Oh, this is worse and worse!” thought the poor 
old rabbit. 

But listen, Johnnie Bushytail is outside the owl’s 
house, and lie’s going to do a wonderful trick. 

As soon as he saw the door shut on Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, that brave squirrel boy began to plan how he 
could save him, and the first thing he did was to 
gather up a lot of acorns. 

SO 



Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip-Flop 


Then he perched himself in a tree, right in front 
of the owl’s door, and Johnnie began throwing 
acorns at it. “Kat-a-tat-tat!” went the acorns on 
the wooden panels. 

“Ha! Those must be my friends!” exclaimed 
the bad owl, opening the door a little crack so he 
could peek out, but taking care to stand in front 
of it, so that Uncle Wiggily couldn’t slip out. But, 
of course, the owl saw no one. “It must have been 
the wind,” he said as he shut the door. 

Then Johnnie Bushy tail threw some more acorns 
at the door. “Pitter-patter-patter-pit!” they went, 
like hailstones in an ice cream can. 

“Ah, there are my friends, sure, this time!” 
thought the owl, and once more he peered out, but 
no one was there. “It must have been a tree branch 
hitting against the door,” said the owl, as he sharp¬ 
ened a big knife with which to make the sandwiches. 
Then Johnnie threw some more acorns, and the owl 
now thought positively his friends were there, and 
when he opened it and saw no one he was real mad. 

“Some one is playing tricks on me!” exclaimed 
the savage bird. “I’ll catch them next time!” 

Now this was just what Johnnie Bushytail 
wanted, so he threw a whole double handful of 
acorns at the door, and when the owl heard them 
pattering against the wood he rushed out. 

“Now, I’ve got you!” he cried, but he hadn’t, for 
31 



Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip-Flop 


Johnnie was up a tree. And, for the moment, the 
owl forgot about Uncle Wiggily, and there the door 
was wide open. 

“Run out, Uncle Wiggily! Run out!” cried 
Johnnie, and out the old gentleman rabbit hopped, 
catching up his valise, and away into the woods he 
ran, with Johnnie scurrying along in the tree tops 
above him, and laughing at the owl, who flew back 
to his house, but too late to catch the bunny. 

“That’s what you get for fooling people so they’ll 
come into your house,” called the squirrel boy. 
“It serves you right, Mr. Owl. Come on, Uncle 
Wiggily, we’ll get away from here.” 

So they went on together until it was time for 
Johnnie to go home, and he said he’d tell Uncle 
Wiggily’s friends that he had met the old gentle¬ 
man rabbit, and that he hadn’t found his fortune 
yet, but that he was looking for it every minute, 
and had had many adventures. 

Well, Uncle Wiggily went on some more, for quite 
a distance, until it was noon time, and then he sat 
down in the cool, green woods, where there were 
some jacks-in-the-pulpit growing near some ferns, 
and there Uncle Wiggily ate his lunch of lettuce 
sandwiches, with carrot butter on them, and 
gnawed on a bit of potato. Just as he was almost 
through, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a 
voice exclaimed: 


32 




Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip-Flop 


“Oh, dear!” 

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, 
thinking perhaps an adventure was going to hap¬ 
pen to him. “Who are you?” 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed the voice again. 

Then, before the old rabbit could jump up and 
run away, even if he had wanted to, out from under 
a big bush came a little white poodle dog, with 
curly, silky hair. He walked right up to Uncle 
Wiggily, that dog did, and the rabbit wasn’t a bit 
afraid, for the dog wasn’t much bigger than he was, 
and looked very kind. 

“What do you want, doggie?” gently asked Uncle 
Wiggily. 

The dog didn’t answer, but he gave a little short 
bark, and then he began turning somersaults. Over 
and over he went, sometimes backward and some¬ 
times frontward, and sometimes sideways. And 
when he was finished, he made a low bow, and 
walked around on his two hind legs, just to show he 
wasn’t proud or stuck up. 

“There!” exclaimed the poodle doggie. “Is that 
worth something to eat, Mr. Rabbit?” 

“Indeed it is,” answered Uncle Wiggily, “but I 
would have given you something to eat without you 
doing all those tricks, though I enjoyed them very 
much. Where did you learn to do them?” 

33 



Uncle Wiggily and Fido Flip-Flop 


“Oh, in the circus where I used to be, I always 
had to do tricks for my dinner,” said the doggie. 

“What is your name?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“Fido Flip-Flop,” was the answer. “You see they 
call me that because I turn so many flip-flops,” and 
then Uncle Wiggily gave him some lunch, and told 
the dog about how he, himself, was traveling all 
over in search of his fortune. 

“Why, that’s just what I’m doing, too,” exclaimed 
Fido Flip-Flop. “Suppose we travel together? and 
maybe we’ll each find a fortune.” 

“That’s just what we’ll do,” agreed Uncle Wig- 

giiy- 

And then, all of a sudden, before you could open 
your eyes and shut them again, two savage foxes 
jumped out from behind a big stump. 

“You grab the dog and I’ll grab the rabbit,” 
called the biggest fox, and right at Uncle Wiggily 
and Fido they sprang, gnashing their teeth. 

But don’t worry. I’ll find a way to save them, 
and if the canary bird doesn’t take my lead pencil 
and stick it in his seed dish I’ll tell you in the fol¬ 
lowing story about Uncle Wiggily doing some 
tricks. 


34 



STORY V 


UNCLE WIGGILY DOES SOME TRICKS 

W HEN those two savage ducks—oh, I mean 
foxes—when those two savage foxes 
jumped out of the bushes at Uncle Wig¬ 
gily Longears and Fido Flip-Flop, as I told you in 
the other story, the rabbit and the poodle doggie 
didn’t know wdiat in the world to do. 

“Run this way!” called Fido, starting off to the 
left. 

“No, hop this way!” said Uncle Wiggily, hopping 
to the right. 

“Stand right where you are!” ordered the two 
foxes together. And with that one made a grab for 
Uncle Wiggily. But what did that brave rabbit 
gentleman do but stick his red-white-and-blue 
crutch out in front of him, and the fox bit on 
that instead of on Uncle Wiggily. Right into the 
crutch the fox’s teeth sank, and for a moment Uncle 
Wiggily was safe. But not for long. 

“Ah, you fooled me that time, but now I’ll get 
you!” cried the fox, and, letting go of the crutch, 
he made another grab for the rabbit. 

35 


Uncle Wiggily Does Some Tricks 


But at tliat instant Fido Flip-Flop, who liad been 
jumping about, keeping out of the way of the fox 
that was after him, cried out quite loudly: 

“Look here, everybody but Uncle Wiggily, and, 
as for you, shut both your eyes tight.” 

Now the old gentleman rabbit couldn’t imagine 
why he was to shut his eyes tight, but he did so, and 
then what do you s’pose Fido Flip-Flop did? Why, 
he began turning somersaults so fast that he looked 
just like a pin wheel going around, or an automobile 
tire whizzing along. Faster and faster did Fido 
Flip-Flop turn around, and then, all of a sudden, 
he began chasing his tail, making motions just like 
a merry-go-round in a circus, until those two foxes 
were fairly dizzy from watching him. 

“Stop! Stop!” cried one fox. 

“Yes do stop! We’re so dizzy that we can’t stand 
up!” cried the other fox, staggering about. “Stop!” 

“No, Fll not!” answered Fido Flip-Flop, and he 
went around faster that ever, faster and faster and 
faster, until those two bad foxes got so dizzy-izzy 
that they fell right over on their backs, with their 
legs sticking straight up in the air like clothes 
posts, and their tails were wiggling back and forth 
in the dirt, like dusting brushes. Oh, but they were 
the dizzy foxes, though. 

“Now’s your chance! Run! Run! Uncle Wig- 
36 




wma 




m%k 






































Uncle Wiggily Does Some Tricks 


gily! Run!” called Fido Flip-Flop “Open your 
eyes and run!” 

So the old gentleman rabbit opened his eyes, took 
up his valise which he had dropped, and, hopping 
on his crutch, he and the poodle doggie ran on 
through the woods, leaving the two surprised and 
disappointed foxes still lying on their backs, wig¬ 
gling their tails in the dust, and too dizzy, from 
having watched Fido Flip-Flop do somersaults, and 
chase his tail, to be able to get up. 

“Why did you want me to shut my eyes?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily, when they were so far away from 
the foxes that there was no more danger. 

“That was so you wouldn’t get dizzy from watch¬ 
ing me do the flip-flops, answered the doggie. “My, 
but that was a narrow escape, though. Have you 
had many adventures like that since you started 
out to seek your fortune?” 

“Yes, several,” answered the rabbit. “But turn¬ 
ing flip-flops is a very good thing to know how to 
do. I wonder if you could teach me, so that when 
any more foxes or alligators chase me I can make 
them dizzy by turning around? Can you teach 
me?” 

“Fm sure I can,” said Fido. “Here, this is the 
way to begin,” and he did some flip-flops slow and 
easy-like. Then Uncle Wiggily tried them, and, 
though he couldn’t do them very well at first, he 
37 



Uncle Wiggily Does Some Tricks 


practised until he was quite good at it. Then Fido 
showed him how to stand on one ear, and wiggle the 
other, and how to blink his eyes while standing on 
the end of his little tail, and then Uncle Wiggily 
thought of a new trick, all by himself. 

“Fll stick my crutch in the ground, like a 
clothes pole,” he said to Fido, “and then I’ll hop up 
on it and sing a song,” which he did, singing a song 
that went like this: 


“Did you ever see a rabbit 
Do a flipper-flopper-flap? 

If not just kindly watch me, 

As I wear my baseball cap. 

“It’s very strange, some folks may say, 

And also rather funny, 

To see a kinky poodle dog 
Play with a flip-flop bunny. 

“But we are on our travels, 

Adventures for to seek, 

We may find one, or two, or three, 

’Most any day next week.” 

And then Uncle Wiggily hopped down, and 
waved both ears backward and forward, and made 
38 



Uncle Wiggily Does Some Tricks 


a low bow to a make-believe crowd of people, only, 
of course, there were none there. 

“Fine! Fine!” cried Fido Flip-Flop. “That’s 
better than I did when I was in the circus. Now 
I’ll tell you what let’s do.” 

“What?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“Let’s go around and give little shows and enter¬ 
tainments, for little folks to see,” went on the 
poodle doggie. “I can turn flip-flops, and you can 
stand on your head on your crutch, and sing a song, 
and then we’ll take up a collection. I’ll pass my 
hat, and perhaps we may make our fortune—who 
knows?” 

“Who, indeed?” said Uncle Wiggily. “We’ll do 
it.” 

So off they started together to give a little show, 
and make some money, and, as they went on through 
the woods, they practised doing the tricks Uncle 
Wiggily had learned. 

Well, in a little while, not so very long, they 
came to a nice place in the forest—an open place 
where no trees grew. 

“Here is a good spot for our show,” said Uncle 
Wiggily. 

“But there is no one to see us do the tricks,” ob¬ 
jected Fido. 

“Oh, yes, there are some ants, and an angle 
worm, and a black bug and a grasshopper,” said 
39 



Uncle Wiggily Does Some Tricks 


Uncle Wiggily. “Tliey will do to start on, and 
after they see us do the tricks theyTl tell other 
folks, and we’ll have quite a crowd.” 

So they started in to do their tricks. Fido turned 
a lot of flip-flops, and Uncle Wiggily did a dance on 
the end of his crutch, and sang a song about a mon¬ 
key-doodle, which the angle worm said was just fine, 
being quite cute, and the grasshopper made believe 
play a fiddle with his two hind legs, scratching one 
on the other, and making lovely music. 

But, all of a sudden, just as Uncle Wiggily was 
standing on his left ear, and wiggling his feet in 
the air, which is a very hard trick for a rabbit, what 
should happen but that out of the woods sprang 
two boys. 

“There’s the dog! Grab him!” cried one boy. 
“Never mind about the rabbit! Get the trick dog!” 
And the boys rushed right up, knocking Uncle Wig¬ 
gily down, and grabbing Fido Flip-Flop. And they 
started off through the woods with him, while 
Uncle Wiggily cried out for them to come back. 
But they wouldn’t. 

Now please don’t feel badly, for I’m going to tell 
you in the next story how Uncle Wiggily saved 
Fido, and also how the rabbit went to Arabella 
Chick’s surprise party—that is I will if our auto¬ 
mobile doesn’t turn upside down, and break my ice 
cream cone. 


40 



STORY VI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE PARTY 

W ELL, when Uncle Wiggily Longears found 
that the elephant wouldn’t get off his 
trunk—oh, listen to me! What I meant 
to say was, that when Uncle Wiggily saw those two 
boys running off with Fido Flip-Flop, the little 
trick dog, as I told you about in the story before 
this, the old gentleman rabbit was so surprised at 
first that he didn’t know what to do. 

“Won’t you please come back with that little dog¬ 
gie?” begged Uncle Wiggily, but the bad boys kept 
right on. I guess they knew how smart Fido was, 
and they wanted to get up a show with him. Any¬ 
how, they kept on running through the woods, hold¬ 
ing him tightly in their rams. 

“Oh, dear! This is terrible!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily. “I’ll never get any good fortune if Fido 
has such bad luck. And it was partly my fault, too, 
for if we hadn’t been doing tricks, we would have 
heard these boys coming, and could have run away. 
Well, now I must save Fido.” 

41 


Uncle Wiggily at tlie Party 


So Uncle Wiggily sat down on a stump, and 
thought, and thought, and thought of all the plans 
he could think of, to save the doggie from the two 
hoys, and at last he decided the only way to do was 
to scare them. 

“Then they’ll drop Fido, and run away,” said the 
old gentleman rabbit. “Let me see, how can I scare 
them? I know, I’ll make believe I’m a tiger!” 

So what did that brave Uncle Wiggily do? but 
go to a mud hole, and with his crutch dipped into 
the mud, he made himself all striped over like a 
tiger that you see in a circus. Oh, he was a most 
ferocious sight when he finished decorating himself! 
Then he hid his satchel in the bushes, and lie started 
off on a short cut through the woods, to get ahead 
of the boys. Faster and faster through the Tvoods 
went Uncle Wiggily, and he looked so peculiarly 
terrifying that all the animals who saw him were 
scared out of their wits, and one old blue-jay bird 
was so frightened that he wiggled his tail up and 
down, and hid his head in a hollow tree. 

Well, by and by, after a while, Uncle Wiggily 
got to a place in the woods where he knew those 
boys, with Fido Flip-Flop, would soon come by. 
Then the rabbit hid himself in the bushes, so that 
his long ears wouldn’t show. For he knew that 
if the boys saw them, they would know right away 
42 



Uncle Wiggily at the Party 


he wasn’t a tiger, no matter if he was striped like 
one. 

In a few minutes along came the boys, and they 
were talking about what they were going to do to 
Fido, and how they would put him in a cage, and 
make him do lots of tricks. All of a sudden there 
was a rustling in the bushes, and Uncle Wiggily 
just stuck out his head and part of his body, laying 
his ears flat back where they could not be seen. 
But the boys could see the mud stripes, only they 
didn’t know they were just mud, you understand. 

“Oh! See that!” cried one boy. 

“Yes, it’s a tigery-tiger!” exclaimed the other 
boy. 

“Let’s run!” shouted both the boys together. 
“The tiger will eat us up!” 

And just then Uncle Wiggily growled as loudly 
as he could, a real fierce growl, and he rattled the 
bushes and stuck out his striped paws, and those 
boys dropped Fido Flip-Flop, and ran away, as 
hard as the^ould through the woods, leaving Fido 
to join the rabbit. 

“Thank you very much for saving me, Uncle 
Wiggily,” said the dog, as soon as he got over being 
frightened. “That was a good trick, to pretend 
you were a tiger. But I knew you right away, 
only, of course, I wasn’t going to tell those boys 
who you were. It served them right, for squeezing 
43 



Uncle Wiggily at the Party 


me the way they did. Now we’ll go on, and see 
if we can find a fortune for you.” 

So they went back to where Uncle Wiggily had 
left his valise, and there it was safe and sound, and 
inside it were some nice things to eat, and the rabbit 
and doggie had a dinner there in the woods, after 
the mud stripes were washed off. 

Then they went on and on, for ever so long, 
and nothing happened, except that a mosquito bit 
Fido on the end of his nose, and every time he 
sneezed it tickled him. 

"Well, I guess we won’t have any more adven¬ 
tures to-day, Uncle Wiggily,” spoke the doggie, 
but, a moment later, they heard a rustling in 
the bushes and, before they could hide themselves, 
out jumped Arabella Chick, the sister of Charlie, 
the rooster boy. 

“Oh, you dear Uncle Wiggily!” she exclaimed, 
“you’re just in time.” 

“What for?” asked Uncle Wiggily; “for the 
train?” 

“No, for my party,” answered Arabella. “I’m 
going to have one for all my friends, and I want 
you to come. Will you?” 

“Oh, I guess so, Arabella. But you see, I have 
a friend with me, and-” 

“Oh, he can come too,” spoke Arabella, making 
•a bow to Fido Flip-Flop. So Uncle Wiggily in- 
44 




Uncle Wiggily at the Party 


troduced the doggie to the chickie girl, and the 
chickie girl to the doggie. 

Then they went on together to the party, which 
was held in a nice big chicken coop. 

Oh, I wish you could have been there! It was 
just too nice for anything! Sammie and Susie 
Littletail were there, and they were so glad to see 
Uncle Wiggily again. He said he hadn’t been very 
lucky in finding his fortune so far, but his rheuma¬ 
tism was not much worse, and he was going to keep 
on traveling. He sent his love to all the folks, and 
said he’d be home some time later. 

Then, of course, all the other animal friends were 
at the party and they played games—games of all 
kinds, including a new one called “ Please don’t 
sit on my hat, and I won’t sit on yours.” It was 
too funny for anything, really it was. 

Then, of course, there were good things to eat. 
Buddy Pigg passed around the ice cream, and just 
as he was handing a plate of it to Jennie Chip¬ 
munk it slipped—I mean the ice cream slipped— 
and went right into Uncle Butter’s lap. But the 
old goat didn’t care a bit. He said it reminded 
him of a pail of paste, and he ate the ice cream, 
and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy got Jennie some 
more. 

Then Flip-Flop and Uncle Wiggily did some of 
their tricks, and every one said they were fine, and 
45 



Uncle Wiggily at tlie Party 


they thought it was the best party they had ever 
been at. 

But all of a sudden, just as they were playing 
the game called “Jump on the piano, and play a 
queer tune,” there came a knock at the door. 

“Who’s there?” asked Arabella Chick. 

“I am,” answered a voice, “and I want Uncle 
Wiggily Longears instantly! He must come with 
me!” And they all looked from the window, and 
there stood a big dog, dressed up like a soldier, and 
he had a gun with him. And he wanted Uncle 
Wiggily to come out, and every one was frightened, 
for fear he’d shoot the old gentleman rabbit. 

But please don’t you get alarmed. I wouldn’t 
have that happen for worlds, and in the next story, 
if I catch a fish in the milk bottle, and he doesn’t 
bite my finger, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily 
in a parade. And it will be a Decoration Day 
story. 


46 



STORY YII 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN A PARADE 

A RABELLA CHICK’S party seemed to break 
up very suddenly when the guests saw 
that soldier-dog with the gun waiting out¬ 
side the door. Buddy Pigg slipped out of a back 
window, and ran home with his tail behind him. 
Oh, excuse me, guinea pigs don’t have a tail, do 
they? Anyhow he ran home, and so did Sammie 
and Susie Littletail, and Johnnie and Billie Busby- 
tail, and the Wibblewobble children, and Peetie 
and Jackie Bow Wow too. 

But, of course, Arabella Chick couldn’t run home 
because she was at home already, so she just looked 
out of the window once more, and there the dog- 
soldier stood, and he was looking in his gun to see 
if it was loaded. 

“Well, is Uncle Wiggily coming out?” called the 
dog again. 

“I guess I am—that is—are you sure you want 
me?” asked the poor old gentleman rabbit, puzzled 
like. 


47 


Uncle Wiggily in a Parade 


“Yes, of course I want you,” replied tlie dog. 

“Then I guess I’ve got to go!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily, as he looked for his crutch and valise. “I 
guess this is the end of my fortune-hunting. Good¬ 
bye everybody!” And he felt so badly that two big 
tears rolled down his ears—I mean his eyes. 

Well, he bravely walked out of the door, and as 
he did so the dog-soldier, with the gun, exclaimed: 

“Ah, here you are at last! Now hurry up, Uncle 
Wiggily, or we’ll be late for the parade!” 

And, would you believe it? that dog was good, 
kind, old Percival, who used to be in a circus. And 
of course he wouldn’t hurt the rabbit gentleman 
for anything. Percival just put his gun to his 
shoulder, and said: 

“Come on, we’ll get in the parade now.” 

“Parade? What parade?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 
“Oh my! how you frightened me!” 

“Why the Decoration Day parade,” answered 
Percival. “To-day is the day when we put flowers 
on the soldiers’ graves, and remember them for 
being so brave as to go to war. All old soldiers 
march in the parade, and so do all their friends. 
I’m going to march, and I’m going to put flowers 
on a lot of soldiers’ graves. I happened to remem¬ 
ber that you were once in the war, so I came for 
you. I didn’t mean to scare you. You were in the 
war, weren’t you?” 


48 



Uncle Wiggily in a Parade 


“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily, liappy now because 
he knew he wasn’t going to get shot, “I once, went 
to war, and killed a lot of mosquitoes.” 

“Good! I thought so!” exclaimed Percival. 
“Well, I met Grandfather Goosey Gander, and he 
said he thought you were at this party, so I came 
for you. Come on, now, the parade is almost ready 
to start.” 

“Oh, how you did frighten us!” exclaimed Ara¬ 
bella, whose heart was still going pitter-patter. 
“We thought you were going to hurt Uncle Wiggily, 
Percival.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry I alarmed you,” spoke the cir¬ 
cus dog politely. “I won’t do it again.” 

Well, in a little while Percival and Uncle Wiggily 
were at the parade. The old gentleman rabbit left 
his satchel at Arabella’s house, and only took his 
crutch. But he limped along just like a real sol¬ 
dier, and Percival carried his gun as bravely as 
one could wish. 

Oh, I wish you could have heard the bands play¬ 
ing, and the drums beating—the little kind that 
sound like when you drop beans on the kitchen oil¬ 
cloth, and the big drums, that go “Boom-boom!” 
like thunder and lightning, and the fifes that 
squeak like a mouse in the cheese trap, and then 
the big blaring horns, that make a sound like a 
circus performance. 


49 



Uncle Wiggily in a Parade 


They were all there, and there were lots of sol¬ 
diers and horses and wagons filled with flowers to 
put on the graves of the soldiers, who were so 
brave that they didn’t mind going to war to fight 
for their country, though war is a terrible thing. 

Then the march began, and Uncle Wiggily and 
Percival stepped out as brave as anyone in all 
the parade. • Oh, how fine they looked! and, when 
they marched past, all the animal people, and some 
real boys and girls, and papas and mammas clapped 
their hands and cried “Hurrah!” at the sight of 
the old gentleman rabbit limping along on his 
crutch, with the dog-soldier marching beside him. 

“Who knows,” whispered Percival to Uncle 
Wiggily, “who knows but what you may discover 
your fortune to-day?” 

“Indeed I may,” answer Uncle Wiggily. “Who 
knows?” 

Well, that was a fine parade. But something 
happened. I was afraid it would, but I’ll tell you 
all about it, and you can see for yourself whether 
or not I was right. 

All of a sudden one man, with a big horn—a horn 
large enough to put a loaf of mother’s bread down 
inside the noisy end—all of a sudden this man blew 
a terrible blast—“Umpty-umpty-Umph! Umph!” 
My, what a noise he made on that horn. 

Now, right in front of this man was a little boy- 
50 



Uncle Wiggily in a Parade 


duck riding on a pony. Yes, you’ve guessed who 
he was—he was Jimmy Wibblewobble. And when 
that man blew the loud blast, the pony was fright¬ 
ened, and ran away with Jimmie on his back. 

Faster and faster ran the pony, and Jimmie 
Wibblewobble clung to his back, fearing every 
moment he would be thrown off. In and out among 
the people and animals in the parade, in and out 
among trolley cars and automobiles, in and out, 
and from one side to another of the street ran the 
frightened pony. 

“Oh, poor Jimmie will be killed!” cried Percival. 

“No, he will not, for I will save him!” shouted 
Uncle Wiggily. So that brave rabbit ran right out 
to where he saw Muncliie Trot, the little pony boy. 

“Let me jump on your back, Munchie,” said 
Uncle Wiggily, “and then we’ll race after that run¬ 
away pony and grab off poor Jimmie. And run as 
fast as you can, Munchie!” 

“I certainly will!” cried Munchie. So Uncle 
Wiggily got on Munchie’s back, and away they 
started after the runaway pony. 

Faster and faster ran Munchie, and by this time 
the other little horsie was getting tired. Jimmie 
was still clinging to his back, and asking him not 
to run so fast, but the pony was so frightened he 
didn’t listen to the duck-boy. 

Then, just as he was going to run into a hot pea- 
51 



Uncle Wiggily in a Parade 


nut wagon, and maybe toss Jimmie off into the red- 
hot roaster, all at once Uncle Wiggily, on Mun- 
chie’s back, galloped up alongside of the runaway 
pony. And as quick as you can drink a glass of 
lemonade, Uncle Wiggily grabbed Jimmie up on 
Munchie’s back beside him, and so saved the duck- 
boy’s life. And then the runaway pony stopped 
short, all of a sudden, and didn’t bump into the 
hot peanut wagon, after all, and he was sorry he 
had run away, and scared folks. 

Then the Decoration Day parade went on, and 
everyone said how brave Uncle Wiggily was. But 
he hadn’t yet found his fortune, and so in the story 
after this in case our front porch doesn’t run away, 
and take the back steps with it, so I have to sleep 
on the doormat, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily 
in the fountain. 


52 



STORY VIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE FOUNTAIN 

W ELL, after the Decoration Day parade, 
and the things that happened in it, such 
as the pony running away with Jimmie 
Wibblewobble, Uncle Wiggily Longears thought 
he’d like to go off to some quiet place and rest. 

“Oh, can’t you come with me?” asked Percival, 
the old circus dog. “We’ll go to the Bow-Wows 
house, and have something to eat.” 

“No, I’m afraid I can’t go,” replied the old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit. “You see I must travel on to seek 
my fortune, for I haven’t found it yet, and I still 
have the rheumatism.” 

“Why don’t you try to lose that rheumatism 
somewhere?” asked Percival. I would, if it’s such 
a bother.” 

“Oh, I’ve tried and tried and tried, but I can’t 
seem to lose it,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “So I 
think I’ll travel on. I’m much obliged to you for 
letting me march in the parade.” 

Then the old gentleman rabbit got his valise, and, 
53 


Uncle Wiggily in the Fountain 


with his crutch, he once more started off. He went 
on and on, up one hill and down another, over the 
fields where the horses and cows and sheep were 
pulling up the grass, and chewing it, so the man 
wouldn’t have to cut it with the lawn mower; on 
and on he went. Then Uncle Wiggily reached the 
woods, where the ferns and wild flowers grow. 

“This is a fine place,” he said as he sat down on 
a flat stump. “I think I will eat my dinner,” so 
he opened the satchel, and took out a sandwich 
made of yellow carrots and red beets, and very 
pretty they looked on the white bread, let me tell 
you; very nice indeed! 

Uncle Wiggily was eating away, and he was 
brushing the crumbs off his nose by wiggling his 
ears, when, all of a sudden, he heard a cat crying. 
Oh, such a loud cry as it was! 

“Why, some poor kittie must be lost,” thought 
the old gentleman rabbit. “I’ll see if I can find it.” 

Then the cry sounded again, and, in another 
moment, out of a tree flew a big bird. 

“Oh, maybe that bird stuck his sharp beak in 
the kittie and made it cry,” thought Uncle Wiggily. 
“Bird, did you do that?” he asked, calling to the 
bird, who was flying around in the air. 

“Did I do what?” asked the bird. 

“Did you stick the kittie, and make it cry?” 

“Oh, no,” answered the bird. “I made that cat- 
54 



Uncle Wiggily in the Fountain 


crying noise myself. I am a cat-bird, you know,” 
and surely enough that bird went “Mew! Mew! 
Mew!” three times, just like that, exactly as if a 
cat had cried under your window, when you were 
trying to go to sleep. 

“Ha! That is very strange!” exclaimed the 
rabbit. “So you are a cat-bird.” 

“Yes, and my little birds are kittie-birds,” was 
the answer. “Fll show you.” 

So the bird went “Mew! Mew! Mew!” again, 
and a lot of the little birds came flying around and 
they all went “Mew! Mew!” too, just like kitties. 
Oh, I tell you cat-birds are queer things! and how 
they do love cherries when they are ripe! Eh? 

“That is very good crying, birdies,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, “and I think I’ll give you something to 
eat, to pay for it.” So he took out from his valise 
some peanuts, that Percival, the circus dog, had 
given him, and Uncle Wiggily fed them to the cat¬ 
bird and her kittie-birds. 

“You are very kind,” said the mamma bird, “and 
if we can ever do you a favor we will.” 

And now listen, as the telephone girl says, those 
birds are going to do Uncle Wiggily a favor in a 
short time—a very short time indeed. 

Well, after the birds had eaten all the peanuts 
they flew away, and Uncle Wiggily started off once 
more. He hadn’t gone very far before he came to 
55 



Uncle Wiggily in the Fountain 


a fountain. You know what that is. It’s a thing 
in a park that squirts up water, just like when you 
fill a rubber ball with milk or lemonade and squeeze 
it. Only a fountain is bigger, of course. 

This fountain that Uncle Wiggily came to had 
no water in it, for it was being cleaned. There was 
a big basin, with a pipe up through the middle, and 
this was where the water spouted up when it was 
running. 

“This is very strange,” said Uncle Wiggily, for he 
had never seen a fountain before, “perhaps I can 
find my fortune in here. I’ll go look.” So down 
he jumped into the big empty fountain basin, which 
was as large as seven wash tubs made into one. 
And it was so nice and comfortable there, and so 
shady, for there were trees near it, that, before he 
knew it, Uncle Wiggily fell fast asleep, with his 
head on his satchel for a pillow. 

And then he had a funny dream. He dreamed 
that it was raining, and that his umbrella turned 
inside out, and got full of holes, and that he was 
getting all wet. 

“My!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he gave a 
big sneeze. “This is a very real dream. I actually 
believe I am wet!” 

Then he got real wide awake all of a sudden, 
and he found that he was right in the middle of a 
lot of wetness, for the man had turned the water on 
56 



Uncle Wiggily in the Fountain 


in the fountain unexpectedly, not knowing that the 
old gentleman rabbit was asleep there. 

“I must get out of here!” cried Uncle Wiggily, 
as he grabbed up his valise and crutch. Then the 
water came up to his little short, stumpy tail. 
Next it rose higher, up to his knees. Then it rose 
still faster up to his front feet and then almost up 
to his chin. 

“Oh, I’m afraid I’m going to drown!” he cried. 
“I must get out!” So he tried to swim to the edge 
of the fountain, but you can’t swim very well with 
a crutch and a valise, you know, and Uncle Wig¬ 
gily didn’t want to lose either one. Then the water 
from the top of the fountain splashed in his eyes 
and he couldn’t see which way to swim. 

“Oh, help! Help!” he cried. “Will no one help 
me?” 

“Yes, we will help you!” answered a voice, and 
up flew the big cat-bird, and her little kitten-birds. 
“Quick, children!” she cried, “we must save Uncle 
Wiggily, who was so kind to us! Every one of you 
get a stick, and we’ll make a little boat, or raft, for 
him!” 

Well, I wish you could have seen how quickly 
the mamma cat-bird and her kittie-birds gathered 
a lot of sticks, and twigs, and laid them together 
crossways on the water in that fountain basin, 
until they had a regular little boat. Upon this 
57 



Uncle Wiggily in the Fountain 


Uncle Wiggily climbed, with his crutch and valise, 
and then the mamma cat-bird flew on ahead, and 
pulled the boat by a string to the edge of the foun¬ 
tain, where the rabbit could safely get out. 

So that’s how the bunny was saved from drown¬ 
ing in the water, and in the next story, if a big, red 
ant doesn’t crawl upon our porch and carry away 
the hammock, I’ll tell you another adventure Uncle 
Wiggily had. It will be a story of the old gentle¬ 
man rabbit and the bad dog. 


58 



STORY IX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DOG 

U NCLE WIGGILY’S rheumatism was quite 
bad after he got wet in the fountain, as I 
told you in the other story, and when he 
thanked the mamma cat-bird and her kitten-birds 
for saving him, he found that he could hardly walk, 
much less carry his heavy valise. 

“Oh, we’ll help you,” said Mrs. Cat-Bird. “Here, 
Flitter and Flutter, you carry the satchel for Uncle 
Wiggily, and we’ll take him to our house.” 

“But, mamma,” said Flutter, who was getting to 
be quite a big bird-boy, “Uncle Wiggily can’t climb 
up a tree to our nest.” 

“No, but we can make him a nice warm bed on 
the ground,” said the mamma bird. “So you and 
Flitter carry the satchel. Put a long blade of grass 
through the handle, and then each of you take hold 
of one end of the grass in your bills, and fly away 
with it. Skimmer, you and Dartie go on ahead, and 
get something ready to eat, and I’ll show Uncle 
Wiggily the way.” 


59 


Uncle Wiggily and the Dog 


So Flitter and Flutter, the two boy birds, flew 
away with the satchel, and Skimmer and Dartie, 
the girl birds, flew on ahead to set the table, and 
put on the teakettle on the stove to boil, and Mrs. 
Cat-Bird flew slowly on over Uncle Wiggily, to 
show him the way. 

Well, pretty soon, not so so very long, they came 
to where the birds lived. And those good children 
had already started to make a nest on the ground 
for the old gentleman rabbit. They had it almost 
finished, and by the time supper was ready it was 
all done. Then came the meal, and those birds 
couldn’t do enough for Uncle Wiggily, because 
they liked him so. 

When it got dark, they covered him all up, with 
soft leaves in the nest on the ground, and there he 
slept until morning. His rheumatism wasn’t quite 
so bad when, after breakfast, he had sat out in the 
warm sun for a while, and after a bit he said: 

“Well, I think I’ll travel along now, and see if 
I can find my fortune to-day. Perhaps I may, and 
if I do I’ll come back and bring you more peanuts.” 

“Oh, that’ll be fine and dandy!” cried Flitter and 
Flutter, and Skimmer and Dartie. So they said 
good-by to the old gentleman rabbit, and once more 
he started off. 

“My! I’m certainly getting to be a great trav¬ 
eler,” he thought as he walked along through the 
GO 



Uncle Wiggily and the Dog 


woods and over the fields. “But I don’t ever seem 
to get to any place. Something always happens to 
me. I hope everything goes along nicely to-day.” 

But you just wait and see what takes place. I’m 
afraid something is going to happen very shortly, 
but it’s not my fault, and all I can do is to tell you 
exactly all about it. Wait! There, it’s beginning 
to happen now. 

All of a sudden, as Uncle Wiggily was traveling 
along, he came to a place in the woods where a 
whole lot of Gypsies had their wagons and tents. 
And on one tent, in which was an old brown and 
wrinkled Gypsy lady, there was a sign which read: 

FORTUNES TOLD HERE. 

“Ha! If they tell fortunes in that tent, perhaps 
the Gypsy lady can tell me where to find mine,” 
thought Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll go up and ask her.” 

Well, he was just going to the tent when he hap¬ 
pened to think that perhaps the Gypsy woman 
wouldn’t understand rabbit talk. So he sat there 
in the bushes thinking what he had better do, when 
all at once, before he could wiggle his ears more 
than four times, a great big, bad, ugly dog sprang 
at him, barking, oh! so loudly. 

“Come on, Browser!” cried this dog to another 
one. “Here is a fat rabbit that we can catch for 
dinner. Come on, let’s chase him!” 

61 



Uncle Wiggily and the Dog 


Well, you can just imagine how frightened Uncle 
TViggily was. He didn’t sit there, waiting for that 
dog to catch him, either. No, indeed, and a bag 
of popcorn besides! Up jumped Uncle Wiggily, 
with his crutch and his valise, and he hopped as 
hard and as fast as he could run. My! How his 
legs did twist in and out. 

“Come on! Come!” barked the first dog to the 
second one. 

“I’m coming! I’m coming! Woof! Woof! 
Bow-w-w Bow-wow!” barked the second dog. 

Poor Uncle Wiggily’s heart beat faster and 
faster, and he didn’t know which way to run. Every 
way he turned the dogs were after him, and soon 
more of the savage animals came to join the first 
two, until all the dogs in that Gypsy camp were 
chasing the poor old gentleman rabbit. 

“I guess I’ll have to drop my satchel or my 
crutch,” thought Uncle Wiggily. “I can’t carry 
them much farther. Still, I don’t want to lose 
them.” So he held on to them a little longer, took 
a good breath and ran on some more. 

He thought he saw a chance to escape by Tun¬ 
ing across in front of the fortune-telling tent, and 
he started that way, but a Gypsy man, with a gun, 
saw him and fired at him. I’m glad to say, how¬ 
ever, that he didn’t shoot Uncle W T iggily, or else I 
couldn’t tell any more stories about him. 

62 




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Uncle Wiggily and the Dog 


Uncle Wiggily got safely past the tent, hut the 
dogs were almost up to him now. One of them was 
just going to catch him by his left hind leg, when 
one of the Gypsy men cried out: 

“Grab him, Biter! Grab him! We’ll have rab¬ 
bit potpie for dinner; that’s what we’ll have!” 

Wasn’t that a perfectly dreadful way to talk 
about our Uncle Wiggily? But just wait, if you 
please. 

Biter, the bad dog, was just going to grab the 
rabbit, when all of a sudden, Uncle Wiggily saw a 
big hole in the ground. 

“That’s what I’m looking for!” he exclaimed. 
“I’m going down there, and hide away from these 
dogs!” 

So into the hole he popped, valise, crutch and all, 
and oh! how glad he was to get into the cool, 
quiet darkness, leaving those savage, barking dogs 
outside. But wait a moment longer, if you please. 

Biter and Browser stopped short at the hole. 

“He’s gone — gotten clean away!” exclaimed 
Browser. “Isn’t that too bad?” 

“No, we’ll get him yet!” cried Biter. “Here, 
you watch at this hole, while I go get a pail of 
water. We’ll pour the water down, under the 
ground where the rabbit is, and that will make 
him come out, and we’ll eat him.” 

“Good!” cried Browser. So while he stood there 
63 



Uncle Wiggily and the Dog 


and watched, Biter went for the water. But, mind 
you, Uncle Wiggily had sharp ears and he heard 
what they were saying, and what do you think he 
did? 

Why, with his sharp claws he went right to work, 
and he dug, and dug, and dug in the back part of 
that underground place, until he had made an¬ 
other hole, far off from the first one, and he crawled 
out of that, with his crutch and valise, just as Biter 
was pouring the water down the first hole. 

“Ah, ha! I think this will astonish those dogs!” 
thought Uncle Wiggily, and he took a peep at them 
from behind a bush where they couldn’t see him, 
and then he hopped on through the woods, to look 
for more adventures, leaving the dogs still pour¬ 
ing water. 

And one happened to him shortly after that, as I 
shall tell you -on the next page, when, in case the 
rocking chair doesn’t tip over backwards and spill 
out the sofa cushion into the rubber plant, the story 
will be about Uncle Wiggily and the monkey. 


64 



STORY X 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MONKEY 

L ET me see, we left those two bad dogs pour¬ 
ing water down the hole, to get Uncle Wig¬ 
gily out, didn’t we? And the old gentle¬ 
man rabbit fooled them, didn’t he? He got out of 
another hole that he dug around by the back door, 
you remember. 

Well, I just wish you could have seen those two 
dogs, after they had poured pail after pail of water 
down the hole, and no rabbit came floating up. 

“This hole must go all the way down to China !” 
said Browser, breathing very fast. 

“Yes, I’m tired of carrying water,” said Biter. 
And just then another dog cried out: 

“Why, foolish dogs, the water’s all running out 
the back way!” And, surely enough, it was. Then 
they knew Uncle Wiggily had escaped, and they 
were as angry as anything, but it served them 
right, I think. 

“My! I wonder what will happen next?” thought 
the old gentleman rabbit, as he hopped along. 
“That was a narrow escape.” 

65 


JJncle Wiggily and the Monkey 


So, having nothing else to do, Uncle Wiggily 
sat down on a nice, smooth stump, and he ate some 
lunch out of his valise. And a red ant came up, 
and very politely asked if she might not pick up 
the crumbs which the old rabbit dropped. 

“Of course you may,” said Uncle Wiggily kindly. 
“And I’ll give you a whole slice of bread and butter, 
also.” 

“Oh, you are too generous,” spoke the red ant. 
“I never could carry a slice of bread and butter. 
But if you will leave it on the stump I’ll get some 
of my friends, and we’ll bite off little crumbs, a 
few at a time, and in that way carry it to our 
houses.” 

So that’s what Uncle Wiggily did, and the ants 
had a fine feast, and they were very thankful. 
.Uncle Wiggily asked them if they knew where he 
could find his fortune. 

“Why don’t you go to work, instead of traveling 
around so much?” asked the biggest red ant. “The 
best fortune is the one you work for.” 

“Is it? I never thought of that,” said Uncle 
Wiggily. “I will look for work at once. I wonder 
if you ants have any for me.” 

“We’d like to help you,” they said, “but you 
see you are so large that you couldn’t get into our 
houses to do any work. You had much better travel 
along, and work for some one larger than we are.” 

66 



Uncle Wiggily and the Monkey 


“I will,” decided the old gentleman rabbit. “Fll 
ask every one I meet if they want me to work for 
them. 

So he started off once more, and the first place 
he came to was a house where a mouse lady lived. 

“Have you any work I can do?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily politely. 

“What work can you do?” asked the mouse lady. 

“Well, I can peel carrots or turnips with my 
teeth,” said Uncle Wiggily, “and I can look after 
children, and tell them stories, and I can do some 
funny tricks-” 

“Then you had better go join a circus, inter¬ 
rupted the mouse lady. “I have no children, and I 
can peel my own carrots, thank you. As for tur¬ 
nips, I never eat them.” 

“Then I must go on a little further,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, as he picked up his valise, and walked 
off on his crutch. So he went on, until he came to 
another house in the woods, and he knocked on 
the door. 

“Have you any work I can do?” inquired Uncle 
Wiggily politely. 

“No! Get away and don’t bother me!” growled 
a most unpleasant voice, and the rabbit was just 
going down the steps, when the door opened a crack, 
and a long, sharp nose and a mouth full of sharp 
67 




Uncle Wiggily and the Monkey 


teeth, and some long legs with sharp claws on 
them, were stuck out. 

“Ok, hold on!” cried the voice. “I guess I can 
find some work for you after all. You can get up 
a dinner for me!” and then the savage creature, 
who had opened the door, made a grab for the 
rabbit and nearly caught him. Only Uncle Wiggily 
jumped away, just in time, and the wolf, for he it 
was who had called out, caught his own tail in 
the crack of the door and howled most frightfully. 

“Come back! Come back!” cried the wolf, but, 
of course, Uncle Wiggily wouldn’t do such a fool¬ 
ish thing as that, and the wolf couldn’t chase after 
him, for his tail was fast in the door hinge. 

“My, I must be more careful after this how I 
knock at doors, and ask for work,” the old gentle¬ 
man rabbit thought. “I was nearly caught that 
time. I’ll try again, and I may have better luck.” 

So he walked along through the woods, and 
pretty soon he heard a voice singing, and this is 
the song, as nearly as I can remember it: 

Here I sit and wonder 
What I’m going to do. 

I’ve no one to help me, 

I think it’s sad; don’t you? 


68 



Uncle Wiggily and the Monkey 


I have to play the fiddle, 

But still Fd give a cent 
To any one who’d keep the boys 
From crawling in the tent. 

“Well, I wonder who that can be?” thought 
Uncle Wiggily. “He’ll give a cent, eh? to any 
one who keeps the boys from crawling in the tent. 
Now, if that isn’t a bear or a fox or a wolf maybe 
I can work for him, and earn that money. I’ll 
try.” 

So he peeped out of the bushes, and there he saw 
a nice monkey, all dressed up in a clown’s suit, 
spotted red, white and blue. And the monkey was 
playing a tune on a fiddle. Then, all of a sudden, 
he laid aside the fiddle, and began to beat the bass 
drum. Then he blew on a horn, next he jumped 
up and down, and turned a somersault, and then, 
finally, he grabbed up a whip with a whistle in the 
tail—I mean in the end—and that monkey began 
to pretend he was chasing make-believe boys from 
around a real tent that was in a little place under 
the trees. 

“Oh, I guess that monkey won’t hurt me,” said 
Uncle Wiggily as he stepped boldly out, and as soon 
as the monkey saw the rabbit, he called most po¬ 
litely : 

“Well, what do you want?” 

69 




Uncle Wiggily and the Monkey 


“I want to earn a cent, by chasing boys from out 
the tent,” replied Uncle Wiggily. 

“Good!” cried the monkey. “So you heard me 
sing? Fm tired of being the whole show. I need 
some one to help me. Come over here and Fll ex¬ 
plain all about it. If you like it, you can go to 
w r ork for me, and if you do, your fortune is as good 
as made.” 

“That’s fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “And I can 
do tricks in the show, too.” 

“Fine!” exclaimed the monkey, hanging by his 
tail from a green apple tree. “Now, I’ll explain.” 

But, just as he was going to do so, out jumped 
a big black bear from the bushes, making a grab 
for Uncle Wiggily. He might have caught him, 
too, only the monkey picked up a cocoanut pie off 
the ground and hit the bear so hard on the head, 
that the savage creature was frightened, and ran 
away, sneezing, leaving the monkey and the rabbit 
alone by the show-tent. 

“Now, we’ll get ready to have some fun,” said 
the monkey, and what he and Uncle Wiggily did 
I’ll tell you in the following story which will be 
about the old gentleman rabbit and the boys—that 
is, if the molasses jug doesn’t tip over on my plate, 
and spoil my bread and butter peanut sandwich. 


70 



STORY XI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BOYS 

IT ELL,” said the monkey after the bear 
bad run away. “I guess we can now 
sit down and talk quietly together; 
e!k, Uncle Wiggily?” 

“Yes,” said the old gentleman rabbit. “But what 
is it that you want me to do? I heard you sing 
that funny little song, about the boys coming in 
the tent. But I don’t exactly understand.” 

“That’s just it,” replied the monkey. “You see, 
it’s this way. I have a little sort of a circus-show 
here, and the troublesome boys don’t want to pay 
any money to get in. So when my back is turned 
they crawl under the tent, and so they see the show 
for nothing—just like at the circus.” 

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 
“And you want me to keep out the boys?” 

“That’s it,” said the monkey. Here’s a big stick, 
with which to tickle the boys who crawl in under 
the tent without paying. Now I’ll practice my 
tricks.” 


71 


Uncle Wiggily and the Boys 


So the monkey did a lot of tricks. He stood on 
his head, and he hung by his tail, and he danced 
around in a circle. Then he pounded the drum, not 
so hard as to hurt it, but hard enough to make a 
noise, and he played the fiddle and blew on the 
horn, and then he ran inside the tent and jumped 
over a bench, making believe it was an elephant, 
and he did all sorts of funny tricks like that. He 
even stood on his head, and made a funny face. 

“That will make a very nice show,” said Uncle 
Wiggily after he had watched the monkey. “Now 
I’ll stay outside, and keep the boys from coming 
in unless they pay their money. And you can be 
inside, doing the tricks.” 

“And Til give you money for working for me,” 
said the monkey. “Then perhaps you can make 
your fortune, and, besides that, IT1 give you a 
cocoanut, and you can make a cocoanut pie with 
it.” 

“That will be fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. So 
he and the monkey practiced to get ready for their 
show. It was a nice little tent in which it was to 
be given, and there were seats for the people, who 
would come, and a platform, and flying rings and 
trapeze bars and paper hoops, and all things like 
that, just the same as in a real circus. Well, finally 
the time came for the show. It was the day after 
Uncle Wiggily got to the place where the tent was, 



Uncle Wiggily and the Boys 


and he had slept that night in a hammock, put up 
between two trees. 

“Now we’re almost ready for the show,” said the 
monkey to the old gentleman rabbit, after a bit, 
“so I hope you will be sure to keep out the trouble¬ 
some boys. They always creep under the tent, and 
see the show for nothing. I can’t have that going 
on if I’m to make any money.” 

“Oh, I’ll stop ’em!” declared Uncle Wiggily. 

“And here’s the club to do it with,” said the 
monkey, handing Uncle Wiggily a stick. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” answered the rab¬ 
bit. “I never hurt boys if I can help it. Perhaps 
I shan’t need the club. I’ll leave it here.” 

So Uncle Wiggily hid the club under an apple 
tree, but the monkey said it would be needed, and 
he wanted Uncle Wiggily to keep it, and take a 
whip, too. But the old rabbit shook his head. 

“I’ll try being kind to the boys,” he said. “You 
let me have my way, Mr. Monkey.” 

Well, pretty soon, not so very long, the show be¬ 
gan. The monkey went inside the tent, and he blew 
on the horn, and he made music on the fiddle, and 
sang a funny song about a little great big pussy, 
who had a red balloon. She stuck a pin inside it, 
and it played a go-bang! tune. 

Of course, as soon as the show started the people 
came crowding up to the tent, just as they do at 
73 



Uncle Wiggily and the Boys 


the circus. There were men and women, and little 
boys and girls, and big boys and girls, and they 
all wanted to get inside to see what the monkey 
was doing. But, do you know, I believe all that 
he was doing was playing monkey-doodle tricks— 
but, of course, I might be mistaken. 

Well, as it always happens, some boys didn’t 
have any money with which to pay their way inside 
the tent. And, of course, as it will sometimes hap¬ 
pen, one boy said to another: 

“Hey! I know a way we can crawl in under 
the tent, and see the show, and not have anything 
to pay.” 

“But that wouldn’t be fair,” spoke the other 
boy. “It would be cheating, and there’s nothing 
meaner in this world than to cheat, whether it’s 
playing a baseball game or going to a circus.” 

“I guess you’re right,” said the first boy. “What 
shall we do, though? I want to see the show.” 

“Well, we must be fair, anyhow,” spoke the sec¬ 
ond boy. “We can’t crawl in under the tent, but 
perhaps if we ask the monkey to let us in for noth¬ 
ing he’ll do it.” 

“Very well, we will,” said the first boy. So they 
went up to the monkey and asked if they could go 
in for nothing, but, of course, he wouldn’t let them. 

“May we crawl in under the tent, then?” asked 
the second boy. 


74 



Uncle Wiggily and the Boys 


“If Uncle Wiggily will let you," answered the 
monkey, blinking his two eyes and wrapping his 
tail around his neck. 

So those boys tried to crawl in under the tent, 
and as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw them he rushed 
up and cried out: 

“Hey! Hold on there! Nobody must go under 
the tent. You must buy a ticket," and he shook 
a feather at the boys and, instead of hitting them, 
he only tickled them, and didn’t hurt them a bit, 
for they sneezed. 

Well, those boys were very troublesome. They 
kept on trying to crawl under the tent, and Uncle 
Wiggily rushed here, there and around the corner 
trying to stop them, and he cracked the lash on his 
whip, just like the man in the circus ring. But 
those boys kept on trying to crawl under the tent, 
for the monkey had given them permission, you see. 

So finally Uncle Wiggily said: 

“I’ll give those boys a little show myself, out¬ 
side the tent, for nothing. Then maybe they’ll stop 
bothering me." 

So he stood on his left ear, and then on his right 
ear, and then he jumped through a hoop, and 
rolled over, and barked liked a dog, and all the boys 
that had tried to crawl under the tent to see the 
monkey-show for nothing, ran out to see Uncle 
Wiggily’s show. 


75 



Uncle Wiggily and the Boys 


And he did lots of tricks and kept them all from 
crawling in under the tent, and he even ate a pop¬ 
corn ball, standing on his hind legs, and wiggling 
his left ear with a pin-wheel on it. Then, after a 
while, the monkey-show was all over, and the mon¬ 
key said: 

“Uncle Wiggily, you did very well. You treated 
those troublesome boys just fine! So Til give you 
ten pennies, and perhaps they will make you have 
a good fortune.” 

Then the monkey gave Uncle Wiggily ten pen¬ 
nies, and he went to sleep in a feather bed, while 
the old gentleman rabbit went down to the drug 
store to get an ice cream soda. 

And what happened after the show was over, 
and what Uncle Wiggily did after he had his ice 
cream, I’ll tell you in the next story which will be 
about Uncle Wiggily in a balloon. That is, if our 
pussy cat doesn’t get all covered with red paint, 
and look like a tomato growing on a strawberry 
vine. So watch out, and don’t let that happen. 


76 



STORY XII 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN A BALLOON 

W ELL, just as I expected, something hap¬ 
pened to my pussy-cat named Peter. He 
didn’t fall into the pot of red paint, but 
he either ran away, or else some one took him. So 
now I have no pussy-cat. But I’ll tell you a story 
about Uncle Wiggily just the same. 

The old gentleman rabbit stayed with the monkey 
for several days, and he was so kind and good to the 
troublesome boys—Uncle Wiggily was, I mean— 
and he did such funny tricks for them, that they 
didn’t crawl under the tent any more, and the 
monkey could do his tricks in peace and quietness. 

“Ok, you have been a great help to me,” said the 
monkey to the rabbit, “and I would like you to 
work for me all Summer. I am now going to travel 
on to the next town, and if you like you may go 
with me and keep the boys there from crawling 
under the tent.” 

“No, I thank you,” replied Uncle Wiggily slowly, 
as he put some bread and butter, and a piece of pie, 
77 


Uncle Wiggily in a Balloon 


into liis satchel. “I think I will travel farther on 
by myself, and seek my fortune.” 

“Well, I’m sorry to see you go,” said the monkey. 
“And here is fifty cents for your work. I hope you 
have good luck.” 

And then Uncle Wiggily started off again, over 
the fields and through the woods, seeking his for¬ 
tune, while the monkey got ready to move his show 
to the next town. 

Well, for some time nothing happened to the old 
gentleman rabbit. He walked on and on, and once 
he saw a little red ant, trying to drag a piece of 
cake home for dinner. The cake was so big that 
the ant was haying a dreadful time with it, but 
Uncle Wiggily took his left ear, and just brushed 
that cake into the ant’s house as easily as any¬ 
thing. 

“My, how strong and brave you are,” cried the 
little red ant. “Won’t you let me get you a glass 
of water?” 

“I would like it,” said the rabbit, “for it is quite 
warm to-day.” 

Well, that ant got Uncle Wiggily a glass of 
water, but you know how it is—an ant’s glass is so 
very small that it only holds as much water as you 
could put on the point of a pin, and really, I’m not 
exaggerating a bit, when I say that Uncle Wiggily 
drank seventeen thousand four hundred and twenty- 
78 



Uncle Wiggily in a Balloon 


six and a half ant-glasses of water before he had 
enough. It took all the ants for a mile around to 
bring the water to him, but they didn’t mind, be¬ 
cause they liked him. 

Then the old gentleman rabbit traveled on again, 
and when it came night he slept under a haystack. 

“I am sure I’ll find my fortune to-day,” thought 
Uncle Wiggily as he got up and brushed the hay 
seed out of his ears the next morning. 

It was a bright, beautiful day, and he hadn’t 
gone very far before he heard some fine music. 

“My, there must be a hand-organ around here,” 
he said to himself. “And perhaps there is another 
monkey. I’ll watch out.” 

So he stood on his hind legs, Uncle Wiggily did, 
and the music played louder, and all of a sudden 
the rabbit looked down the road, and there was a 
nice circus, with the white tents, all covered with 
flags, and bands playing, and elephants squirting 
water through their long noses over their backs to 
wash the dust off. And lions and tigers were roar¬ 
ing, and the horses were running, and the fat lady 
was drinking pink lemonade, and Oh! it was fine! 

“I’ve got fifty cents, and I guess I’ll go to the 
circus,” thought Uncle Wiggily, and he was just 
entering the big tent when he happend to see a 
man with a lot of red and green and yellow and 
pink balloons. Now, you would have thought that 
79 



Uncle Wiggily in a Balloon 


man would have been happy, haying so many bal¬ 
loons, but he wasn’t. He looked very sad, that man 
did, and he was almost crying. 

“Poor man!” thought Uncle Wiggily. “Perhaps 
he has no money to go in the circus. I’ll give him 
mine. Here is fifty cents, Mr. Man,” said the old 
gentleman rabbit, kindly. “Take it and go see the 
elephant eat peanuts.” 

“Oh, that is very good of you,” spoke the balloon 
man, “but I don’t want to go to the circus. I want 
to sell my balloons, but no one will buy them.” 

“Why not?” asked the rabbit. 

“Oh, because there are so many other things to 
buy,” said the man, “red peanuts and lemonade in 
shells—oh, I’ve got that wrong, it is red lemonade, 
isn’t it? And peanuts in shells. But no matter. 
What I need,” said the man, “is to get the people to 
listen to me—I need to make them look at me, and 
when they see what fine balloons I have they’ll buy 
some. But there are so many other things to look 
at that they never look toward me at all.” 

“Ha! I know the very thing!” cried Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “You ought to have some one go up in a bal¬ 
loon. That would surprise the people like anything. 
They’d be sure to look at that, and they’d all run 
•over here and buy all your balloons.” 

“Yes, but who can I get to go up in a balloon?” 
asked the man. 


80 



















Uncle Wiggily in a Balloon 


“I will!” cried Uncle Wiggily bravely. “Per¬ 
haps I may find my fortune up in the sky, so Fll 
go in a balloon.” 

Well, the man thought that was fine. So he made 
a little basket for the rabbit to sit in, and he fast¬ 
ened the basket to a big red balloon, and then he 
took care of the rabbit’s valise for him, while Uncle 
Wiggily got ready to go toward the clouds, taking 
only his crutch with him. 

When the man had everything fixed and when 
the rabbit was sitting in the basket as easily as in 
a soft chair at home, the man cried: 

“Over here! Over here, everybody! Over here, 
people! A rabbit is going up in a balloon! A most 
wonderful sight! Over here!” 

And then the man let go of the balloon, and Uncle 
Wiggily shot right up toward the sky, only, of 
course, the man had a string fast to the balloon to 
pull it down again. Up and up went the balloon 
carrying Uncle Wiggily. Up and up! 

And my! how surprised the people were. They 
rushed over and bought so many balloons that the 
man couldn’t take in the money fast enough. And 
Uncle Wiggily stayed up there, high in the air, 
looking for his fortune. 

And then, all of a sudden, a bad boy, with a bean 
shooter, shot at the balloon, and “bang!” it burst, 
;with a big hole in it. Down came Uncle Wiggily, 
81 



Uncle Wiggily in a Balloon 


head over heels, bursted balloon, basket, crutch 
and all. 

“Oh, he’ll be killed! He’ll be killed!” cried all 
the people. 

“No, he’ll not! We’ll save him!” cried Dickie 
and Nellie Chip-Chip, the boy and girl sparrow, 
who happened to be at the circus. “We’ll save 
Uncle Wiggily!” 

So up into the air they flew, and before Uncle 
Wiggily could fall to the ground Dickie and Nellie 
grabbed the basket in their bills, and, by fluttering 
their wings, they let it come very gently to earth 
just like a feather falling, and the rabbit wasn’t 
hurt a bit. But, of course, the balloon was broken. 

So that’s how Uncle Wiggily went up in a bal¬ 
loon and came down again, but he hadn’t yet found 
his fortune. And now in the next story, if our fire 
shovel doesn’t go out to play in the sand pile, and 
get its ears full of dirt, I’ll tell you about Uncle 
Wiggily in an automoblie. 


82 



STORY XIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN AN ATJTO 

W ELL, after Uncle Wiggily had been saved 
from the falling balloon by Dickie and 
Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrow children, 
the people were so excited that they wanted the bad 
boy arrested for making a hole in the balloon with 
his bean-shooter. 

“No, let him go,” said the rabbit gentleman, 
kindly. “Fm sure he won’t do it again.” And do 
you know, that boy never did. It was a good les¬ 
son to him. 

Then the people bought all the balloons, until the 
man had none left, and I guess if he could have 
sent for forty-’leven more he would have sold them 
also. 

“I will pay you good wages to stay with me, and 
go up in a balloon every day,” said the man to the 
rabbit. “You would help me do lots of business.” 

“No,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I must travel on 
'and seek my fortune. I didn’t find it up in the air.” 
But before the old gentleman rabbit traveled on, 
83 


Uncle Wiggily in an Auto 


lie went into tlie circus with Dickie and Nellie. For 
they had an extra ticket that Bully the frog was 
going to use, only Bully went in swimming and 
caught cold, and had to stay home. So Uncle Wig¬ 
gily enjoyed the show very much in his place. 

“Give my love to Sammie and Susie Littletail 
and to all my friends,” said the rabbit, as he took 
his crutch and valise, after the circus was over, and 
started to travel on, looking for his fortune. 

Well, the first place he came to that day was an 
old hollow stump, and on the door was a card which 
read: 


COME IN. 

“Ha! Come in; eh?” said Uncle Wiggily. “I 
guess not much! You can’t fool me again. There 
is a bad bear, or a savage owl inside that stump, 
and they want to eat me. I’ll just stay outside.” 

He was just hurrying past, when the door of the 
stump-house opened, and an old grandfather fox 
stuck out his head. This fox was almost blind, and 
he had no teeth, and he had no claws, and his tail 
was just like a last year’s dusting brush, that the 
moths have eaten most up, and altogether that fox 
was so old and feeble that he couldn’t have hurt a 
mosquito. So Uncle Wiggily wasn’t a bit afraid 
of him. 


84 



Uncle Wiggily in an Auto 


“I say, is there anything good to eat out there?” 
asked the fox, looking over the tops of his spec¬ 
tacles at the rabbit. “Anything nice and juicy to 
eat?” 

“Yes, I am good to eat,” said Uncle Wiggily, 
“but you are not going to eat me. Good-by!” 

“Hold on!” cried the old fox, “don’t be afraid. 
I can only eat soup, for I have no teeth to chew 
with, so unless you are soup you are of no use to 
me.” 

“Well, I’m not soup, but I know how to make 
some,” replied the rabbit, for he felt sorry for the 
grandfather fox. 

So what do you think our Uncle Wiggily did? 
Why, he went into the fox’s stump-house and made a 
big pot full of the finest kind of soup, and the rab¬ 
bit and the fox ate it all up, and, because the fox 
had no teeth or claws, he couldn’t hurt his visitor. 

“I wish you would stay with me forever,” said 
the old fox, as he blinked his eyes at Uncle Wiggily. 
“I have a young and strong grandson coming home 
soon, and you might show him how to make soup.” 

“No, thank you,” replied the rabbit. “I’m afraid 
that young and strong grandson of yours would 
want to eat me instead of the soup, I guess I’ll 
travel on.” So the old gentleman rabbit took his 
crutch and valise and traveled on. 

Well, pretty soon, it began to get dark, and Uncle 
85 



Uncle Wiggily in an Auto 


Wiggily knew niglit was coming on. And he 
w T ondered where he could stay, for he didn’t see 
any haystacks to sleep under. He was thinking 
that he’d have to dig a burrow in the ground for 
himself, and he was looking for a soft place to 
begin, when, all at once, he heard a loud “ Honk- 
Honk !” back of him in the road. 

“Ha, an automobile is coming!” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “I must get out of the way!” So he hopped 
on ahead, going down the road quite fast, until he 
got to a place where there were prickly briar bushes 
on both sides of the highway. 

“My! I’ll have to keep in the middle of the road 
if I don’t want to get scratched,” said the rabbit. 
And then the automobile horn behind him honked 
louder than ever. 

“They are certainly coming along fast,” thought 
Uncle Wiggily. “If 1 don’t look out I’ll be run 
over.” So he hopped along quicker than before, 
until, all of a sudden, as he looked down the road, 
he saw a savage dog standing there. 

“Well, now! Isn’t that just my bad luck!” cried 
Uncle Wiggily. “If I go on the dog will catch me, 
and if I stand here the auto will run on top of me. 
I just guess I’ll run back and see if there is a hole 
where I can crawl through the bushes.” 

So he started to run back, but, no sooner had he 
done so, than the dog saw him, and came rushing at 
86 



Uncle Wiggily in an Auto 


him with a loud, “ Bow-wow-wow! Bow-wow-wow !” 

“My, but lie’s savage!” thought the rabbit. “I 
wonder if I can get away in time?” 

And then the auto honked louder than before, 
and all of a sudden it came whizzing down the road, 
right toward the rabbit. 

“Oh, dear; I’m going to be caught, sure!” cried 
Uncle Wiggily, and indeed it did look so, for there 
was the dog running from one direction, and the 
auto coming in the other, and prickly briar bushes 
were on both sides of the road, and Uncle Wiggily 
couldn’t crawl through them without pulling all 
the fur off his back, and his ears, too. 

“Honk-Honk!” went the auto. 

“Bow-wow!” went the dog. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Then he 
thought of a plan. “I’ll give a big run and a long 
jump and maybe I can jump over the auto, and 
then the auto will bump into the dog, and I will 
be safe!” he cried. 

So he took a long run, and just as the auto was 
going to hit him, Uncle Wiggily gave a big jump, 
right up into the air. He didn’t jump quite quickly 
enough, however, for one of the big rubber tires 
ran over his toe, but he wasn’t much hurt. And 
what do you think he did? Why, he landed right in 
the auto, on the seat beside a little boy. 

And that dog was so frightened of the automobile 
87 



Uncle Wiggily in an Auto 


that he howled and yowled, and his teeth chattered, 
and he tucked his tail between his legs, and ran 
home. 

“Oh, the bunny! The bunny!” cried the little 
boy, as he saw Uncle Wiggly. “May we keep him, 
papa?” 

“I guess so,” said the boy’s papa. “Anyhow his 
foot is hurt, and we’ll take care of him until it gets 
well. My, but he is a good jumper, though!” 

So the man stopped the auto, and picked up 
Uncle Wiggily’s crutch and valise, which the old 
gentleman rabbit had dropped when he jumped 
upon the seat beside the boy, and then the car went 
on. And Uncle Wiggily wasn’t a bit frightened at 
being in an auto, for he knew the boy and man 
would be kind to him. 

“Perhaps I shall find my fortune now,” the rabbit 
gentleman said. And the little boy patted him on 
the back, and stroked his long ears. 

Now, in the story after this I’ll tell you what 
happened to Uncle Wiggily at the little boy’s house, 
and in case our door key doesn’t get locked out, 
and have to sleep in the park, you are going to hear 
about Uncle W T iggily in a boat. 


88 



STORY XIV 


•v 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN A BOAT 

OOR rabbit!” exclaimed tbe little boy in 
I the automobile, as he rubbed Uncle Wig- 
gily’s ears. “I wonder if his foot is 
much hurt, papa?” 

“I don’t know,” answered the man, as he steered 
the machine down the road. “I’ll have the doctor 
look at it.” 

“Ok, indeed, it isn’t hurt much,” spoke up Uncle 
Wiggily. “The rubber tire was soft, you see. But 
my rheumatism is much worse on account of run¬ 
ning so fast.” 

“What’s this? Well, of all things! This rabbit 
can talk!” cried the man in surprise. 

“Of course he can, papa,” said the boy. “Lots 
of rabbits can talk. Why, there’s Sammie and 
Susie Littletail; they can talk, and maybe this rab¬ 
bit knows them.” 

“I’m their uncle,” said the old gentleman rabbit, 
making a bow. 

“Oh, then, you must be Uncle Wiggily Longears!” 

89 


Uncle Wiggily in a Boat 


cried tlie little boy. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to see 
you, and now I can!” 

“Well, it is very strange to meet you this way/’ 
said the man. “Still, I am glad you are not hurt, 
Uncle Wiggily. And so you are out seeking your 
fortune/’ for the rabbit had told them about his 
travels. “Perhaps you would like to rest at our 
house for a few days. We can give you a nice room, 
with a brass bed, and a bath-tub to yourself, and 
you can have your meals in bed, if you can’t come 
down stairs.” 

“Oh, I am not used to that kind of a life,” said 
the old gentleman rabbit. “I would rather live 
out of doors. If you can get me some clean straw 
to lie on, and once in a while a carrot or a turnip, 
and a bit of lettuce and some cabbage leaves now 
and then, I’ll be all right. And as soon as my foot 
is well I’ll travel on.” 

“Oh, what good times we’ll have!” cried the little 
boy. “Our house is near a lake, and I have a motor 
boat. And I’ll give you a ride in it.” 

Well, Uncle Wiggily thought that would be nice, 
and he was rather glad, after all, that he had 
jumped into the auto. So pretty soon they came to 
the place where the boy lived. Oh, it was a fine, 
large house, with lots of grounds, lawns and gar¬ 
dens all around it. And there were several dogs 
on the place, but the little boy spoke to them all, 
90 



Uncle Wiggily in a Boat 


telling them that the rabbit was his friend Uncle 
Wiggily, who must not be bitten or barked at on 
any account. 

“Oh, we heard about him from Fido Flip-Flop,” 
said big dog Rover. “We wouldn’t hurt Uncle 
Wiggily for two worlds, and part of another one, 
and a bag of peanuts.” 

So Uncle Wiggily was given a nice bed of straw 
in one of the empty dog-houses, and the boy got 
him some cabbage and lettuce, and the rabbit made 
himself a sandwich of them, with some bread and 
butter which he had in his satchel. 

Then the rabbit and the dogs talked together, and 
the rabbit told of his travels, and what had hap¬ 
pened to him so far. 

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” exclaimed the old 
dog Rover. “You should write a book about your 
fortune.” 

“I haven’t found it yet, but perhaps I may, and 
then I’ll write the book,” said Uncle Wiggily, comb¬ 
ing out his whiskers. 

That night the boy put a soft rag and some salve 
on the rabbit’s sore foot, and he also gave him some 
liniment for his rheumatism, and in the morning 
Uncle Wiggily was much better. He and the boy 
and the dogs had lots of fun playing together on 
the smooth, green, grassy lawn. They played tag, 
and hide-and-go-seek, and a new game called “Don’t 
91 



Uncle Wiggily in a Boat 


Let the Ragman Take Your Rubber Boots.” And 
the dog Rover pretended he was the ragman. 

“Now, then, we’ll all go out in my motor boat.” 
said the boy, so he and Uncle Wiggily and the dogs 
went down to the lake and, surely enough, there 
was the boat, the nicest one you could wish for. 
There was a little cabin in it, and seats out on deck, 
and a little engine that went “choo-choo!” and 
pushed the boat through the water. 

In the boat they all had a fine ride around the 
lake, which was almost like the one where you go 
to a Sunday-school picnic, and then it was time for 
dinner. And, as a special treat, when they got on 
shore, Uncle Wiggily was given carrot ice cream, 
with chopped-up turnips in it. x4.nd oh, how good 
it was to him! 

Well, the days passed, and Uncle Wiggily was 
getting so he could walk along pretty well, for his 
foot was all cured, and he began to think of going 
on once more to seek his fortune. And then some¬ 
thing happened. One day the boy went out alone 
in a rowboat to see if he could find any fish. And 
before he knew it his boat had tipped over, spilling 
him out into the water, and lie couldn’t swim. 
Wasn’t that dreadful? 

“Oh! Help! Help!” he cried, as the water came 
up to his chin. 

My, but it’s awful to be tipped over in a boat! 

92 



Uncle Wiggily in a Boat 


and I hope if you can’t swim you’ll never go out 
in one alone. And there was that poor boy splash¬ 
ing around in the water, and almost drowned. 

“Save me! Save me!” the boy cried. “Oh, 
save me!” 

Well, as it happened, Uncle Wiggily was walk¬ 
ing along the shore of the lake just then. He saw 
the little boy fall out of the boat, and he heard him 
cry. 

“I’ll save you if I can!” exclaimed the brave old 
rabbit. “Come on, Rover, we’ll go out in the motor 
boat and rescue him.” 

“Bow-wow! Bow-wow! Sure! Sure!” cried 
Rover, wagging his tail. 

So he and Uncle Wiggily ran down, and jumped 
into the motor boat. And they knew just how to 
start the engine and run it, for the boy had showed 
them. 

“Bang-bang!” went the engine. “Whizz-whizz!” 
went the boat through the water. 

“Faster! Faster!” cried Uncle Wiggily, who was 
steering the boat, while Rover ran the engine. “Go 
faster!” 

So Rover made it go as fast as he could, and then 
all of a sudden that boy went down under the water, 
out of sight. 

“Oh, he’s drowned!” cried Uncle Wiggily sor¬ 
rowfully. 


93 



Uncle Wiggily in a Boat 


But lie wasn’t, I’m glad to say. Just then along 
came Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat, swim¬ 
ming. And she dived away down under and helped 
bring that boy up to the top of the water, and then 
Uncle Wiggily and Rover grabbed him as the musk¬ 
rat lifted him up, and they pulled him into the 
motor boat, and so saved his life. And oh! how 
thankful he was when he was safe on shore, and 
he was careful never to fall in the water again. 

Now, in case the clothes wringer doesn’t squeeze 
all the juice out of my breakfast orange, I’ll tell 
you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily making 
a cherry pie. 


94 



STORY XV 


UNCLE WIGGILY MAKES A PIE 

D O YOU remember the little boy whom Uncle 
Wiggily helped save after he fell out of 
the boat? Well, that boy’s papa was so 
glad because Uncle Wiggily had helped save the 
little chap from drowning that he couldn’t do 
enough for the old gentleman rabbit. 

“You can stay here forever, and have carrot ice 
cream every day if you like,” the man said. 

“Oh, thank you very much, but I think I’ll travel 
on,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “I have still to seek 
my fortune.” 

“Why, I will give you a fortune!” said the boy’s 
papa. “I will give you a thousand million dollars, 
and a penny besides.” 

“That would be a fine fortune,” spoke the rabbit, 
“but I would much rather find my own. It is no 
fun when you get a thing given to you. It is better 
to earn it yourself, and then you think more of it.” 

“Yes, that is so,” said the man. “Well, we will 
be sorry to see you go.” 


95 


JJncle Wiggily Makes a Pie 


Uncle Wiggily started oft tlie next day, once more 
to seek his fortune, and the little boy felt so sad 
at seeing him go that he cried, and put his arms 
around the old gentleman rabbit, and kissed him 
between the ears. And Uncle Wiggily felt badly, 
too. 

Well, the old gentleman rabbit traveled on and 
on for several days after that, sleeping under hay 
stacks part of the time, or in empty hollow stumps, 
and sometimes he dug a burrow for himself in the 
soft ground. 

And one afternoon, just as the sun was getting 
ready to go to bed for the night, Uncle Wiggily 
came to an open place in the woods where there was 
a cave, made of a lot of little stones piled up to¬ 
gether. 

“My! I wonder who lives there?” thought the 
rabbit. “It is too small for a giant to live in, but 
there may be a bad bear or a savage fox in there. I 
guess I’d better get away from here.” 

Well, Uncle Wiggily w T as just going, when, all 
at once, a voice cried out: 

“Here, hold on there!” 

The rabbit looked back, and he saw a great big 
porcupine, or hedgehog—you know, those animals 
like a big gray rabbit, only their fur is the stickery- 
prickery kind, like needles, and the quills come out 
and stick in anybody who bites a hedgehog. So I 
96 



Uncle Wiggily Makes a Pie 


hope none of you ever bite one. And they won’t 
bite you if you don’t bother them. 

So as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw that it was Mr. 
Hedgehog who was speaking he wasn’t a bit afraid, 
for he knew him. 

“Oli, it’s you, is it?” asked the rabbit. “I’m real 
glad to see you. I was going to travel on, but-” 

“Don’t say another word!” cried the hedgehog 
heartily. “You can stay in my cave all night. I 
have two beds, and it’s a good thing I have, for if 
you slept with me you might get full of my stickery- 
stickers.” 

“Yes, I guess I had better sleep alone,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, with a laugh. “But it seems to me, Mr. 
Hedgehog, that you are not looking well.” 

“I’m not,” answered the porcupine, as he shivered 
so that several of his quills fell out on the grass. 
“I’m suffering for some cherry pie. Oh, cherry 
pie! If I only had some I know I’d feel better at 
once. I just love it!” 

“Why don’t you make some yourself?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily. 

“I have tried,” replied the hedgehog. “I’ve tried 
and tried again, but, somehow, it never comes out 
right. Here, I’ll show you. I made a cherry pie 
just before I looked out of the door and saw you. 
I’ll show it to you.” 


97 



Uncle Wiggily Makes a Pie 


He went into his little stone house, and Uncle 
Wiggily went with him. 

“There’s the pie—it’s no good!” cried the porcu¬ 
pine, as he pointed to something on the table. Well, 
as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw it he laughed so hard 
that his ears waved back and forth. 

“What’s the matter? I don’t see anything 
funny,” asked Mr. Hedgehog, shivering so that 
more quills fell out. 

“Why, you’ve gone and put the cherry pits into 
the pie instead of the cherries,” said the rabbit. 
“That’s no way to do. You must take out the 
stones from inside the cherries and put the outside 
part of them inside the pie, and throw the inside or 
stony part of the cherries away.” 

“Oh, good land!” cried the hedgehog, “no won¬ 
der I couldn’t eat the pie. You see, I thought 
cherries were like peanuts. For you know you 
throw away the outside part of the peanut, and eat 
the inside.” 

“Yes, and cherries are just the opposite,” said 
the rabbit, laughing again. “For you eat the out¬ 
side of a cherry and throw away the pit or stone 
that is inside. Now, I’ll make you a cherry pie.” 

“I wish you would,” said the porcupine. “I’ll 
go get the cherries.” 

So he went out in the orchard, and he shot his 
sharp stickery quills, like little arrows at the cher- 
98 



Uncle Wiggily Makes a Pie 


ries on the tree, and they fell clown, so he could 
pick them up in a basket. I mean the cherries fell 
down, though of course the quills did also though 
the hedgehog didn’t pick them up. 

And while he was doing that Uncle Wiggily w T as 
making the pie crust. He took flour and lard and 
water, and mixed them together, and then he put in 
other things—Oh, well, you just ask your mamma 
or the cook what they were, for I might get it wrong 
—and soon the pie crust was ready. Then Uncle 
Wiggily built a hot fire in the stove, and he waited 
for Mr. Hedgehog to come in with the cherries. 

And pretty soon the porcupine came back with 
his basket full, and he and Uncle Wiggily shelled 
the peanuts—I mean the cherries—taking out the 
pits. 

“Now I’ll put them in the pie, and put sugar on 
them, bake it in the oven, and soon it will be done, 
and we can eat it,” said the rabbit. 

“Oh, joy!” cried the hedgehog. “That w T ill be 
fine!” 

So Uncle Wiggily put the cherries in the pie, and 
threw the pits away, and he put the pie in the oven, 
and then he and Mr. Hedgehog sat down to wait 
for it to bake. And oh, how delicious and scrump¬ 
tious it did smell! if you will excuse me for saying 
so. 


99 



JJncle Wiggily Makes a Pie 


Well, in a little while, the pie was baked, and 
Uncle Wiggily took it from the oven. 

“I can hardly wait to eat it!” cried the hedge¬ 
hog, and just then there came a terribly loud knock 
on the door. 

“Oh, maybe it’s that bad fox come for some of 
my pie!” exclaimed the hedgehog. “If it is, I’ll 
stick him full of stickery-stickers.” But when he 
went to the door there stood old Percival, the circus 
dog, and he was crying as hard as he could cry. 

“Come in,” invited Uncle Wiggily. “Come in, 
and have some cherry pie, and you’ll feel better.” 
So Percival came in, and they all three sat down, 
and ate the cherry pie all up, and sure enough Per¬ 
cival did feel better, and stopped crying. 

Then the circus dog and Uncle Wiggily stayed 
all night with Mr. Hedgehog, and they had more 
cherry pie next day, and it was very fine and sweet. 

Now, if our cook makes some nice watermelon 
sandwiches, with maple syrup on them, for supper, 
I’ll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily 
and old dog Percival, and why Percival cried. 


100 



STORY XYI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND PERCIVAL 

N OW Pm going to tell yon, before I forget it, 
why old dog Percival was crying that time 
when he came to the little stone house 
where the hedgehog lived, and where Uncle Wiggily 
gave him some cherry pie. And the reason Percival 
w r as crying, was because he had stepped on a sharp 
stone, and hurt his foot. 

“But I don’t in the least mind now,” said Per¬ 
cival, after he had eaten about sixty-’leven pieces 
of the pie. “My foot is all better.” 

“I should think that cherry pie would make al¬ 
most any one better,” said the hedgehog, laughing 
w T ith joy, for he felt better, too. “I know some bad 
boys to whom I’m going to give some cherry pie, 
and I hope it makes them better. And to think 
I threw away the good part of the cherries and 
cooked the stones in the pie. Oh, excuse me while 
I laugh again!” 

And the hedgehog laughed so hard that he spilled 
some of the red cherry pie juice on his shirt front, 
but he didn’t care, for he had another shirt. 

101 


Uncle Wiggily and Percival 


Well, Uncle Wiggily and Percival, the old circus 
dog, stayed for some days at the home of the hedge¬ 
hog, and they had cherry pie, or fritters with maple 
syrup, at almost every meal. Then, finally, Uncle 
Wiggily said: 

“Well, I guess I must travel on. I can’t find my 
fortune here. I must start off to-morrow.” 

“And I’ll go with you,” spoke Percival. “We’ll 
go together, and see what we can find.” 

Well, he and Uncle W T iggily went on together for 
some time, and nothing happened, except that they 
met a poor pussy cat without any tail, and Uncle 
Wiggily gave her some of the pie. And the next 
day they met a cat and seven little kittens, and 
they all had tails, so they had to have some pie, too. 

But one night, after Percival and Uncle Wiggily 
had been traveling all day, they came to a deep, 
dark, dismal w^oods. > j 

“Oh, have we got to go through that forest?” 
asked the old gentleman rabbit, wrinkling up his 
ears—I mean his nose. 

“I guess we have,” replied the circus dog. “We 
may find our fortunes in there.” 

“It is a pretty dark spot to look for money, or 
fortunes,” said the rabbit. “The best thing we 
can do is to look for a place to sleep, and in the 
morning we will hurry out of the woods.” 

Well, the two animal friends started into the 
102 



Uncle Wiggily and Percival 


grove of trees, and tliey hadn’t gone very far before 
it got so dark that they couldn’t see to go any 
farther. Oh, but it was black and lonesome and 
sort of scary-like! and Uncle Wiggily said: 

“ Let’s stay here, Percival. We’ll make a little 
bed under the trees to sleep in, and we’ll build a fire 
to keep us warm, and cook a little supper.” 

So Percival thought that would be nice, and soon 
he and the rabbit had a cheerful little fire blazing, 
and then it wasn’t quite so lonely. Only there was 
a big owl in a tree, and he kept hollering “Who? 
Who? Who? and Percival thought it meant him, 
and Uncle Wiggily thought it meant him, and they 
were rather frightened, so they didn’t either of 
them answer the owl, who kept on calling “Who? 
Who? Who?” 

They were just cooking their supper, and cutting 
up the cherry pie, and putting it on some oak leaves 
for plates, and they had picked out a nice smooth 
stump for a table, when, all of a sudden, they heard 
a voice saying: 

“Now you make a jump and grab the rabbit 
and I’ll take the dog. Then we can carry them off 
to our dens, and that will be the last of them. Get 
ready now!” 

“Did you hear that?” asked Uncle Wiggily of 
the circus dog. 


103 



Uncle Wiggily and Percival 


“Indeed I did,” replied Percival. “I wonder if 
it can be those owls?” 

“It doesn’t sound like them,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “I think it is a bad fox, or maybe two of 
them.” 

And just then they looked off through the woods, 
and by the light of the fire they saw two big, savage, 
ugly wolves. Oh, how their sharp teeth gleamed 
in the dancing flames, and how red their tongues 
were! 

“Come on! Grab ’em both!” cried one savage 
wolf. “Grab the rabbit and the dog!” 

“Sure! I’m with you!” growled the other sav¬ 
age wolf. 

“Oh, what shall we do, Uncle Wiggily?” asked 
Percival. “They’ll eat us up! 

“Let me think a minute,” said the rabbit. So 
he thought for maybe half a minute, and then ex¬ 
claimed: “Oh! I know a good thing to do.” 

“What?” asked Percival. “Say it quickly, Uncle 
Wiggily, for those wolves are creeping up on us, 
and it’s so dark we can’t see to run away.” 

And surely enough, those wolves were sneaking 
up, with their red tongues hanging out longer than 
ever, for all the world just as if they had eaten 
cherry pie. 

“We must do some funny tricks!” exclaimed 
Uncle Wiggily. “You know how, Percival, for you 
104 





























Uncle Wiggily and Percival 


were once in a circus, and I learned some when I 
was with the monkey, and with Fido Flip-Flop. 
Do some tricks, and maybe these wolves will feel 
so good-natured that they won’t bite us.” 

So brave Uncle Wiggily stood up on one ear and 
waved his feet in the air. Then he stood on his 
nose and turned a somersault. Next he went around 
and around as fast as a pinwheel, and he whistled a 
funny tune about a little rubber ball that flew 
into the air, and when it landed on the ground it 
would not stay down there. 

But I wish you could have seen the tricks Perci¬ 
val did. He jumped through between Uncle Wig- 
gily’s long ears, and he walked on his hind legs, 
and on his front ones. Then he stood on his head, 
and he made believe he was begging for something 
to eat, and Uncle Wiggily fed him a carrot, and a 
piece of pie. Then he put a piece of bread on his 
nose, tossed it up into the air—tossed the bread, I 
mean, not his nose—and when it came down he 
caught it and ate it. Oh, it was great! 

Well, those wolves were too surprised for any¬ 
thing. They had never seen tricks like those. First 
they smiled a bit. Then they smiled some more. 
Then one laughed, then the other laughed, and 
finally, when Uncle Wiggily and Percival took 
turns jumping over each other’s backs, the w T olves 
thought it so funny that they had to lie down on 
105 



Uncle Wiggily and Percival 


the leaves and roll over and over because they were 
laughing so hard. 

And, of course, after that they didn’t feel like 
hurting Uncle Wiggily or Percival. And just then 
the big alligator came along and chased the wolves 
away, so the rabbit and dog had no one to bother 
them except the alligator, and, as he had just had 
his supper, he wasn’t hungry, so he didn’t eat them. 

So Uncle Wiggily and Percival went to sleep, and 
so must you, and if the vegetable man brings me a 
pumpkin Jack o’ Lantern, with a pink ribbon on 
the end of the stem, I’ll tell you in the next story 
about Uncle Wiggily in a well. 


108 



STORY XYII 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN A WELL 

W ELL, I didn’t get the pumpkin Jack o’ 
Lantern with the pink ribbon on, but 
some one mailed me an ice cream cone, 
so it’s just as well. That is, I suppose it was an 
ice cream cone when it started on its journey, but 
when I got it there was only the cone part left. 
Maybe the postman took out the ice cream, with 
which to stick a stamp on the letter. 

But there, I must tell you what happened to 
Uncle Wiggily after he and Percival did those 
tricks, and made the wolves laugh so hard. The 
rabbit and the circus dog stayed in the woods all 
that night, and nothing bothered them. 

“Now, Percival, you make the coffee, and I’ll 
spread the bread and butter for breakfast,” said 
Uncle Wiggily the next morning. 

“Where are you going to get the bread and but¬ 
ter?” asked the dog. 

“Oh, I have it in my satchel,” spoke the old rab¬ 
bit, and, surely enough, he did have several large, 
107 


Uncle Wiggily in a Well 


fine slices. So he and Percival ate their breakfast, 
and then they started off again. 

They hadn’t gone very far before they met a 
grasshopper, who was limping along on top of a 
fence rail, and looking quite sad—I mean the grass¬ 
hopper was looking sad, not the fence rail. 

“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, 
kindly. “Are you sad and lonesome because you 
can’t have some cherry pie, or some bread and but¬ 
ter; or because you can’t see any funny tricks? If 
you are, don’t worry, Mr. Grasshopper, for Perci¬ 
val and I can give you something to eat, and also 
do some tricks to make you laugh.” 

“No, I am not sad about any of those things,” 
replied the grasshopper, “but you see I gave a big 
jump over a large stone a little while ago, and I 
sprained my left hind leg. Now I can’t jump any 
more, and here it is Summer, and, of course, we 
grasshoppers have to hop, or we don’t make any 
money.” 

“Oh, don’t let a little thing like that worry you,” 
spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I have some very nice salve, 
that a gentleman and his boy gave me when their 
automobile ran over me, and it cured my sore toe, 
so I think it will cure your left hind leg.” 

Then he put some salve on the grasshopper’s 
leg, and in a little while it was much better. 

108 



Uncle Wiggily in a Well 


“Now we must travel on again, to seek our for¬ 
tune,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Come, Percival.” 

“I will just do one little trick, to make the grass¬ 
hopper feel better before we leave,” said the circus 
dog, so he stood up on the end of his tail, and went 
around and around, and winked first one eye and 
then the other, it was too funny for anything, really 
it was. 

Well, the alligator laughed at that—oh there I 
go again—I mean the grasshopper laughed, and 
then Uncle Wiggily and Percival went off together, 
very glad indeed that they had had a chance to do 
a kindness, even to a grasshopper. 

Pretty soon they came to a place where there 
were two roads branching off, one to the right hand 
and the other to the left, like the letter “Y.” 

“Fll tell you what we’ll do,” said Percival, “you 
go to the right, Uncle Wiggily, and I’ll go to the 
left, and, later on, we’ll meet by the mill pond, and 
perhaps each of us may have found his fortune by 
that time.” 

“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “We’ll do it!” 

So he went off one way, and the circus dog took 
the other path through the woods, and now I must 
tell you what happened to the old gentleman rabbit. 

Uncle Wiggily went along for some time, and 
just as he got to a place where there was a large 
stone, all of a sudden out popped a big fat toad. 
109 



Uncle Wiggily in a Well 


And it wasn’t a nice toad, either, but a bad toad. 

“ Hello, Uncle Wiggily,” said the squatty-watty 
toad. “I haven’t seen you in some time. I guess 
you must be getting pretty old. You can’t jump as 
good as you once could, can you?” 

"Of course, I can,” exclaimed the rabbit, a bit 
pettish-like, for he didn’t care to have even a toad 
think he couldn’t jump as well as ever he could. 

"I’d like to see you,” went on the toad. "See if 
you jump from here over on that pile of leaves,” and 
he pointed to them with his warty toes. 

"I’ll do it,” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. So he 
laid aside his crutch and his valise, gave a little 
run and a big jump, and then he came down ker¬ 
thump on the pile of leaves. 

But wait. Oh! I have something sad to tell you. 
That toad was only playing a trick on the rabbit, 
and those leaves were right over a big, deep, dark 
well. And as soon as Uncle Wiggily landed on the 
leaves he fell through, for there were no boards 
under them to cover up the well, and down, down, 
down he went, and if there had been water in the 
well he would have been drowned. But the well 
was dry, I’m glad to say. Still Uncle Wiggily had 
a great fall—almost like the tumble of Humpty- 
Dumpty. 

"Ah, ha!” exclaimed the mean, squatty-squirmy 
toad. "Now you are in the well, and I’m going off, 
110 



Uncle Wiggily in a Well 


and tell the wolves, so they can come and get you 
out, and eat you. Ah, ha!” Oh! but wasn’t that 
toad a most unpleasant one? You see, he used 
to work for the wolves, doing all sorts of mean 
things for them, and trapping all the animals he 
could for them. 

So off the toad hopped, to call the wolves to come 
and get Uncle Wiggily, and the poor rabbit was 
left alone at the bottom of the well. He tried his 
best to get up, but he couldn’t. 

“I guess I’ll have to stay here until the wolves 
come,” he thought, sadly. “But I’ll call for help, 
and see what happens.” So he called: “Help! 
Help! Help!” as loudly as he could. 

And all of a sudden a voice answered and asked: 

“Where are you?” 

“In the well,” shouted Uncle Wiggily, and he 
was afraid it was the wolves coming to eat him. 
But it wasn’t, it was the limpy grasshopper, and he 
tried to pull Uncle Wiggily out of the well, but, of 
course, he wasn’t strong enough. 

“But I’ll get Percival, the circus dog, and he’ll 
pull you out before the wolves come,” said the grass¬ 
hopper. “Now I have a chance to do you a kindness 
for the one you did me.” So he hopped off, as his 
leg was nearly all better, and he found Percival on 
the left road and told him what had happened. 

And, my! how that circus dog did rush back to 
111 



Uncle Wiggily in a Well 


help Uncle Wiggily. And he got him out of the 
well in no time, by lowering a long rope to him, 
and pulling the rabbit gentleman up, and then the 
rabbit and dog ran away, before the toad could 
come back with the savage wolves, who didn’t get 
any supper out of the well, after all, and it served 
them right. 

So that’s all of this; story, but I have some more, 
about the adventures of Uncle Wiggily, and next, 
in case the load of hay doesn’t fall on my puppy- 
dog, and break off his curly tail, I’ll tell you about 
Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk. 


112 



STORY XVIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND JENNIE CHIPMUNK 

A FTER Uncle Wiggily had been pulled up 
out of the well by Percival, the old circus 
dog, and they had run far enough off so 
that the wolves couldn’t get them, the rabbit and 
the grasshopper and Percival sat down on the 
ground to rest. For you see Uncle Wiggily was 
tired from having fallen down the well, and the 
grasshopper was tired from having run so fast to 
call back Percival, and of course Percival w T as tired 
from having pulled up the old gentleman rabbit. 
So they were all pretty well tired out. 

“Pm sure I can’t thank you enough for what you 
did for me,” said Uncle Wiggily to Percival, and 
the grasshopper. “And as a little treat I’m going 
to give you some cherry pie that I made for the 
hedgehog.” 

So they ate some cherry pie, and then they felt 
better. And they were just going to travel on to¬ 
gether again, when, all at once, there was a rustling 
in the bushes, and out flew Dickie Chip-Chip, the 
sparrow boy. 


113 


Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk 


“Oh, my!” cried Uncle Wiggily, wrinkling up his 
nose. “At first I thought you were a savage owl.” 

“Oh, no, I’m not an owl,” said Dickie. “But I’m 
in a great hurry, and perhaps I made a noise like an 
owl. Percival, you must come back home to the 
Bow Wow house right away.” 

“Why?” asked Percival, sticking up his two ears 
so that he could hear better. 

“Because Peetie Bow Wow is very ill with the 
German measles, and he wants to see you do some 
of your funny circus tricks,” spoke Dickie. “He 
thinks that will make him better.” 

“Ha! I’ve no doubt that it will!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily. “If I were not traveling about, seeking 
my fortune, I’d go back with you, Percival. I love 
Peetie Bow Wow, and Jackie, too.” 

“Oh, I’ll go,” said the grasshopper. “I will play 
Peetie a funny fiddle tune, on my left hind leg, and 
that may make him laugh.” 

“And Nellie and I will sail through the air, and 
go off to find some pretty flowers for him,” said 
Dickie. 

So the sparrow boy, the grasshopper and old 
Percival, the circus dog, started off together to see 
poor sick Peetie Bow Wow, leaving Uncle Wig¬ 
gily there on the grass. 

“Give my love to Peetie!” called the old gentle- 
114 



Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk 


man rabbit after them, “and tell him that I’ll come 
and see him as soon as I find my fortune.” 

Uncle Wiggily felt a little bit sad and lonely 
when his friends were gone, but he ate another piece 
of cherry pie, taking care to get none of the juice, 
on his blue necktie, and then he was a little happier. 

“Now to start off once more,” he said. “I won¬ 
der what will happen next? But I know one thing, 
I’m never going to do any jumping for any squatty 
old toads any more.” 

So Uncle Wiggily traveled on and on, and when 
it came night he didn’t have any place to sleep. 
But as it happened he met a kind old water snake, 
who had a nice house in an old pile of wood, and 
there the rabbit stayed until morning, when the 
water snake got him a nice breakfast of pond lilies, 
with crinkly eel-grass sauce on. 

Pretty soon it was nearly noon that day, and 
Uncle Wiggily was about to sit down on a nice 
green mossy bank in the woods—not a toy bank 
with money in it, you understand, but a dirt-bank, 
with moss on it like a carpet. That’s where he was 
going to sit. 

“I think I’ll eat my dinner,” said the old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit as he opened his valise, and just then 
he heard a voice in the woods singing. And this 
jvas the song : 


115 



Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk 


“Oh dear! Pm lost, I know I am, 

I don’t know what to do. 

I had a big red ribbon, and 
I had one colored blue. 

But now I haven’t got a one 
Because a savage bear 

Took both of them, and tied a string 
Around my curly hair. 

I wish I had a penny bright, 

To buy a trolley car. 

I’d ride home then, because, you see, 

To walk it is too far.” 

“I guess that’s some one in trouble, all right,” 
said Uncle Wiggily, as he cautiously peeped 
through the bushes. “Though, perhaps, it is a 
little wolf boy, or a fox.” put when he looked, 
whom should he see but little Jennie Chipmunk, 
and she was crying as hard as she could cry, so 
she couldn’t sing any more. 

“Why, Jennie, what is the matter?” kindly asked 
Uncle Wiggily. 

“Oh, I came out in the woods to gather acorns in 
a little basket for supper,” she said, “and I guess 
I must have come too far. The first thing I knew 
a big bear jumped out of the bushes at me, and he 
116 



Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk 


took off both my nice, new hair ribbons and put 
on this old string.” 

And, -sure enough, there was only just an old 
black shoestring on Jennie’s nice hair. 

“Where is that bear?” asked Uncle ( Wiggily, 
quite savage like. “Just tell me where he is, and 
I’ll make him give you back those ribbons, and 
then I’ll show you the way home.” 

“Oh, the bear ran off after he scared me,” said 
the little chipmunk girl. “Please don’t look for 
him, Uncle Wiggily, or he might eat you all up.” 

“Pooh!” exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit. 
“I’m not afraid of a bear. I have traveled around 
a great deal of late, and I have had many adven¬ 
tures. It takes more than a bear to scare me!” 

“Oh, it does; does it?” suddenly cried a growly- 
scowly voice, and, would you believe me? right out 
from the bushes jumped that savage bear! And 
he had Jennie’s blue ribbon tied on his left ear, 
and the red one tied on his right ear, and he looked 
too queer for anything. “I can’t scare you; eh?” 
he cried to the rabbit. “Well, I’m just going to 
eat you, and that chipmunk girl all up, and maybe 
that will scare you!” 

So he made a jump for Uncle Wiggily, but do 
you s’pose the rabbit gentleman was afraid? Not 
a bit of it. He knew what he was going to do. 

“Quick, Jennie!” called Uncle Wiggily. “Get 
117 



Uncle Wiggily and Jennie Chipmunk 


in front of me. Fll fix this bear all right.” So 
Jennie got in front, and the rabbit turned his back 
on the bear, and, then Uncle Wiggily began scratch¬ 
ing in the dirt with his sharp claws. My! how he 
did make the dirt fly. It was just like a regular 
rain-shower of sand and gravel. 

And the dirt flew all over that bear; in his eyes 
and nose and mouth and ears, it went, and he 
sneezed, and he couldn’t see out of his eyes, and he 
fairly howled. And by that time Uncle Wiggily 
had dug a big hole in the ground with his feet, and 
he and Jennie hid there until the bear ran off to 
get some water to wash the dirt off his face, and 
then the rabbit and the chipmunk girl came out 
safely. 

Then Uncle Wiggily gave Jennie some pennies 
to buy two new hair ribbons, and he. showed her the 
way home with her basket of acorns, and he himself 
went on with his travels. And he had another ad¬ 
venture the next day. Now in case a cowboy doesn’t 
come along, and take my little pussy cat off to the 
wild west show I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wig¬ 
gily and the paper lantern. 


118 



STORY XIX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LANTERN 

A FTER Uncle Wiggily had taken Jennie 
Chipmunk home, so that the bear couldn’t 
get her, as I told you about in the story 
before this one, the old gentleman rabbit walked on 
over the fields and through the woods, seeking his 
fortune. He looked everywhere for it; down in 
hollow stumps, behind big stones, and even in an 
old well, but you may be sure he didn’t jump down 
any more wells. No, I guess not! 

“Ha! Here is a little brook!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily, after a while, as he came to a small stream 
of water flowing over green, mossy stones, with a 
nice gurgling sound like an ice cream soda, “per¬ 
haps I may find my fortune here.” 

But he looked and he looked in the water with¬ 
out seeing anything but a goldfish. 

“I might sell the goldfish for money,” thought 
the fortune-hunting rabbit, “but it wouldn’t be kind 
to take him out of the brook, so I won’t. I’ll look 
a little farther, on the other side.” 

119 


Uncle Wiggily and the Lantern 


Then, taking up his crutch and his valise, Uncle 
Wiggily gave a big jump, and leaped safely across 
the water. Then, once more, he traveled on. 
Pretty soon he came to a place where there was a 
tree, and on one branch of this tree there hung a 
funny round ball, that looked as if it was made 
of gray-colored paper. And there was a funny 
buzzing sound coming from it. 

“Ha! Do you see that?” asked a big, fat hop¬ 
toad, as he suddenly bobbed up out of the grass. It 
w r as the same toad who had made the rabbit jump 
down in the leaf-covered well. “Do you see that?” 
asked the toad. 

“Well, if you want to find your fortune, take a 
stick and hit that ball.” 

“Indeed I will not!” cried the old gentleman rab¬ 
bit. “I know you and your tricks! That is a hor¬ 
nets’ nest, and if I struck it they w r ould fly out, and 
sting me. Oh, no! You can’t catch me again. 
Now you go away, or I’ll tell a policeman dog to 
arrest you.” 

So the toad knew it was of no use to try to fool 
Uncle Wiggily again, and he hopped away, scratch¬ 
ing his warty back on a sharp stone. 

Well, the old gentleman rabbit traveled on and 
on, and w T hen it came night he wondered where he 
was going to stay, for he hadn’t yet found his for¬ 
tune and the weather looked as if it was going to 
120 



Uncle Wiggily and tlie Lantern 


rain. Then, all of a sudden, he heard voices calling 
like this: 

“Come on, Nannie, you’ve got to blind your 
eyes now, and I’ll go hide.” 

“All right, Billie,” was the answer. “And after 
that we’ll get Uncle Butter to tell us a story.” 

“I guess I know who those children are,” thought 
[Uncle Wiggily, though he had not yet seen them. 
“That’s Billie and Nannie G-oat talking,” and 
surely enough it was, and, most unexpectedly the 
rabbit had come right up to the house where they 
lived, on the edge of the woods. 

Well, you can just imagine how glad Billie and 
Nannie were to see Uncle Wiggily. 

They danced all around him, and held him by 
the paws, and kissed him between his long ears, and 
Billie carried his satchel for him. 

“Oh, we’re so glad you are here!” they cried. 
“Mamma! Papa! Uncle Butter! Here is Uncle 
Wiggily!” 

Well, the whole goat family was glad to see the 
rabbit-traveler, and after supper he told them of 
his adventures, and how he was out seeking his 
fortune. 

And Billie and Nannie told what they had been 
doing, and Nannie showed how she could cut things 
out of paper, like the children do in the kinder¬ 
garten class in school. She could make little 
121 



JJncle Wiggily and the Lantern 


houses, with smoke coming out of the chimney, and 
paper lanterns, and boxes, and, oh! ever so many 
things. The lanterns she made were especially 
fine, just like Chinese ones. 

Then it came time to go to bed, and in the night 
a very strange thing happened, and I’m going to 
tell you all about it. 

Along about 12 o’clock, when all was still and 
quiet, and when the little mice were beginning to 
think it was time for them to creep, creep out of 
their holes, and hunt for bread and cheese; about 
this time there sounded a queer noise down at the 
front door of the goat-house. 

“Ha! What is that?” asked Mrs. Goat. 

“I guess it was the cats,” said Mr. Goat, getting 
ready to go to sleep again. 

“No, I’m sure it was a burglar-fox!” said the lady 
goat. “Please get up and look.” 

Well, of course, Mr. Goat had to do so, after his 
wife asked him like that. So he poked his head 
out of the upstairs window, over the front door, 
and he called out: 

“Who is down there?” 

“I’m a burglar-fox!” was the answer. “I’m com¬ 
ing to rob you.” 

“Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Goat, when she heard that. 
“Get a gun, and shoot him, Mr. Goat.” 

And at that Billie and Nannie began to cry, for 
122 



Uncle Wiggily and the Lantern 


they were afraid of burglars, and Uncle Butter got 
up, and began looking for a whistle, with which to 
call a policeman dog, but he couldn’t find it. 

Then the burglar-fox started in breaking down 
the door, so that he could get in, and still Mr. Goat 
couldn’t find his gun. 

“Oh, we’ll all be killed!” cried Mrs. Goat. “Oh, 
if some one would only help us!” 

“Ha! I will help you!” cried Uncle Wiggily 
jumping out of bed. “I’ll scare that fox so that 
he’ll run away.” 

“But I can’t find my gun,” said Mr. Goat. 

“No matter,” answered the brave rabbit. “I can 
scare him with a paper lantern such as Nannie can 
make. Quick, Nannie, make me a big paper lan¬ 
tern.” 

Well, the little goat girl stopped crying then, and 
she got her paper, and her scissors, and the paste 
pot, and she began to make a paper lantern, as big 
as a water pail. Uncle Wiggily and Billie helped 
her. And all the while the burglar-fox was bang¬ 
ing on the door, and crying out: 

“Let me in! Let me in!” 

“Quick! is the lantern ready?” Asked Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, jumping around in a circle like “Ring Around 
the Rosie.” 

“Here it is,” said Nannie. So the rabbit gentle¬ 
man took it, all nicely made as it was, and inside 
123 



Uncle Wiggily and the Lantern 


of it he put a hot, blazing candle. And the lantern 
was so big that the candle didn’t burn the sides of 
the paper. 

Then Uncle Wiggily tied the lantern to a string, 
and he lowered it right down out of the window; 
down in front of the burglar-fox, and the hot can¬ 
dle in the lantern burned the fox’s nose, and he 
thought it was a policeman climbing down out of 
a tree to catch him, and before you could count 
forty-’leven the bad burglar-fox ran away, and so 
he didn’t rob the goats after all. And, oh! how 
thankful Nannie and Billie and their papa and 
mamma were to Uncle Wiggily. 

Now, in case the little boy next door doesn’t take 
our clothes line, to make a swing for his puppy dog, 
I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the paper 
house in the following story. 


124 



STORY XX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PAPER HOUSE 

B RIGHT and early next morning Uncle Wig- 
gily got up, and lie took a careful look 
around to see if there were any signs of the 
'burglar-fox, about whom I told you in another 
story. 

“I guess he’s far enough off by this time,” said 
Billie Goat, as he polished his horns with a green 
leaf. 

“Yes, indeed,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “It is a 
good thing that Nannie knew how to make a paper 
lantern.” 

“Oh, I can make lots of things out of paper,” 
said the little goat girl. “Our teacher in school 
shows us how. Why I can even make a paper 
house.” 

“Can you, indeed?” asked the old gentleman rab¬ 
bit, as he washed his paws and face for breakfast. 
“Now I should dearly like to know how to make a 
paper house.” 

“Why?” asked Billie Goat, curious like. 

125 


Uncle Wiggily and the Paper House 


“So that when I am traveling about, looking for 
my fortune, and night comes on, and I have no 
place to stay, then I could make me a paper house, 
and be all nice and dry in case it rained,” replied 
the rabbit. 

“Oh, but the water would soon soak through the 
tpaper,” said Billie. “I know, for once I made a 
paper boat, and sailed it on the pond, and soon it 
was soaked through, and sank away down.” 

“Oh, but if I use that funny, greasy paper which 
comes inside cracker boxes—the kind with wax on 
it—that wouldn’t wet through,” spoke the rabbit as 
lie went inside the goatdiouse with the children, for 
Mrs. Goat had called them in to breakfast. 

“That would be just fine!” exclaimed Nannie, as 
she passed some apple sauce and oatmeal to Uncle 
Wiggily. “After breakfast I’ll show you how to 
make a paper house.” 

Well, surely enough, as soon as breakfast was 
over, and before she and Billie had gone to school, 
Nannie showed the old gentleman rabbit how to 
make a paper house. You take some paper and 
some scissors, and you cut out the sides of the house 
and the roof, and you make windows and doors in 
these sides, and then you make a chimney, and you 
fasten them all together, with paste or glue, and, 
there you are. Isn’t it easy? 

And if you only make the paper house large 
126 



Uncle Wiggily and the Paper House 


enough, you can get inside of it and hare a play 
party, and perhaps you can make paper dishes and 
knives and forks; but listen! If you make paper 
things to eat, like cake or cookies or anything like 
that, please only make-believe to eat them, for they 
are bad for the digestion if you really chew them. 

“Well, I think Fll travel along now, and once 
more seek my fortune,” said Uncle Wiggily, when 
Billie and Nannie were ready to go to school. So 
Mrs. Goat packed up for the rabbit a nice lunch 
in his valise, and Nannie gave him some waxed 
paper, that the rain wouldn’t melt, and Billie gave 
his uncle a pair of scissors, and off Mr. Longears 
started. 

Well, he traveled on and on, over the fields and 
through the woods, and across little brooks, and 
pretty soon it was coming on dark night, and the 
rabbit gentleman hadn’t found his fortune. 

“Now I wonder where I can stay to-night?” 
thought Uncle Wiggily, as he looked about him. 
He could see nothing but an old stump, which was 
not hollow, so he couldn’t get inside of it, and the 
only other thing that happened to be there was a 
flat stone, and he couldn’t get under that. 

“I guess I must make me a paper house,” said the 
old gentleman rabbit. “Then I can sleep in it in 
peace and quietness, and I’ll travel on again in the 
morning.” 


127 



JJncle Wiggily and the Paper House 


So he got out the waxed paper, and he took the 
scissors, and, sitting down on the green grass, he 
cut out the sides and roof of the paper house. Then 
he made the chimney, and put it on the roof, and 
then he fastened the house together, and crawled 
inside, with his valise and his barber-pole crutch. 

“I guess I won’t make too many windows or 
doors,” thought Uncle Wiggily, “for a savage bear 
or a burglar-fox might come along in the night, and 
try to get in.” 

So he only made one door, and one window in the 
house. But he made a little fireplace out of stones, 
and built a little fire in it, to cook his supper. But 
listen, you children must nev<*r, never make a fire, 
unless some big person is near to put it out in case 
it happens to run away, and chases after you, to 
catch you. Fires are dreadfully scary things for 
little folks, so please be careful. 

Well, Uncle Wiggily cooked his supper, frying 
some carrots in a little tin frying pan he had with 
him, and then he said his prayers, and went to bed. 
Soon he was fast, fast asleep. 

Well, in the middle of the night, Uncle Wiggily 
was awakened in his paper house by hearing a 
funny noise outside. 

“Ha! I wonder what that can be?” he exclaimed, 
sitting up, and reaching out for his crutch. The 
128 



JJncle Wiggily and the Paper House 


noise kept on, “pitter-patter; pitter-patter-patter- 
pitter; pat-pit-pat-pit.” 

“Oh, that sounds like the toe nails of the burg¬ 
lar-fox, running around the house!” said the rab¬ 
bit. Then he listened more carefully, and suddenly 
he laughed: “Ha! Ha!” Then he got up and looked 
out of the window. “Why, it’s only the rain drops 
pit-pattering on the roof,” he said. “Isn’t it jolly 
to be in a house when it rains, and you can’t get 
wet? After this every night I’m going to always 
build a waxed-paper house,” said Uncle Wiggily. 

So he listened to the rain drops, and he thought 
how nice it was not to be wet, and he went to sleep 
again. And pretty soon he woke up once more, 
for he heard another noise. This time it was a 
sniffing, snooping, woofing sort of a noise, and 
Uncle Wiggily knew that it wasn’t the rain. 

“I’m sure that’s the burglar-fox,” he said. “What 
shall I do? He can smash my paper house with 
his teeth and claws, and then eat me. I should have 
built a wooden house. But it’s too late now. I 
know what I’ll do. I’ll dig a cellar underneath my 
paper house, and I’ll hide there, in case that fox 
smashes the roof.” 

So Uncle Wiggily got up very softly, and right 
in the middle of the dirt floor of his paper house 
he began to burrow down to dig a cellar. My, how 
his paws made the sand and gravel fly, and soon 
129 



XJncle Wiggily and the Paper House 


he had dug quite a large cellar, in which to hide. 

And all this time the sniffing, snooping sound 
kept on, until, all of a sudden a voice cried: 

“Let me in!” 

“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“I’m the bad alligator,” was the answer, “and if 
you don’t let me in, I’ll smash down your paper 
house with one swoop of my scalery-ailery tail.” 

“You can’t come in!” cried the' rabbit,, and then 
that bad alligator gave one swoop of his tail, and 
smashed Uncle Wiggily’s nice paper house all to 
pieces! 

But do you s’pose the rabbit was there? No, 
indeed. He just grabbed up his crutch and valise, 
and ran down into his cellar as far and as fast as 
he could run, just as the roof fell in. And the cellar 
wasn’t big enough for the alligator to get in, and 
so he had to stay outside, and he couldn’t get Uncle 
Wiggily. 

And then it rained, and thundered and light- 
ninged, and the alligator got scared, and ran off, 
but the rabbit gentleman was safe down in his 
cellar, and he didn’t get a bit wet, and went to 
sleep there for the rest of the night. Now r , please 
go to bed, and in case my toothbrush, doesn’t go 
out roller skating, and fall down and get bald- 
headed, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and 
the paper boat. 


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STORY XXI 


UNCLE WIGGILY IN A PAPER BOAT 

W HEN the morning dawned, after he had 
slept all night in the cellar under his 
paper house, that the alligator, with his 
swooping scalery-ailery tail, had knocked down, 
Uncle Wiggily awakened, brushed the dirt from 
his ears, and crawled out. 

“My!” he exclaimed as he saw the paper house 
all flat on the ground, like a pancake, “Nannie 
Goat would certainly be sorry to see this. But I 
suppose it can’t be helped. Anyhow, it’s a good 
thing that I am not squashed as flat as that house 
is. Now I’ll see about my breakfast, and then I’ll 
travel on again.” 

So the old gentleman rabbit got his breakfast, 
eating almost the last piece of the cherry pie, which 
he had left from the time when he made some for 
the hedgehog, and then, taking his crutch, striped 
red, white and blue, like a barber pole, off he 
started. 

Well, pretty soon, in a little while, not so very 

131 


Uncle Wiggily in a Paper Boat 


long, Uncle Wiggily came to a pond of water, and, 
looking down into it, lie saw tlie most beautiful 
goldfish that you can imagine. It was a big fish, 
too, and the scales on it were as round as gold dol¬ 
lars. 

“My !” exclaimed the rabbit. “If I had that fish, 
and I could take him to a jewelry shop, and sell 
him, I would get so much money that my fortune 
would be made, and I wouldn’t have to travel any 
farther. But I guess the fish would rather stay in 
the pond than in a jewelry shop.” 

“Indeed, I would,” answered the fish, looking up. 
“And I am glad you are so kind as to be thoughtful 
of my feelings. Perhaps I may be able to help you, 
some day.” 

And with that the fish dived away down under 
the water, after calling good-bye to the rabbit, and 
then Uncle Wiggily hopped on, and he didn’t think 
any more about the goldfish, until some time after 
that. 

Well, as soon as the elephant had his trunk 

packed-Oh, hold on, if you please. I wonder 

what’s the matter with me? There’s no elephant in 
this story. He comes in it about five pages farther 
on. 

Well, after traveling for several hours, Uncle 
Wiggily ate his dinner, then he hopped on some 
more, and he looked all around for his fortune, but 
132 




Uncle Wiggily in a Paper Boat 


lie couldn’t find it. Then it began to get dark, and 
he wondered where he could stay that night. 

“I might build a paper house,” he said, “but if 
I do the alligator might come along and smash it, 
and this time he would probably catch me. I won¬ 
der what I’d better do?” 

So he looked ahead, and there he saw a stream 
of water. It was quite a wide brook, but on the 
other side of it he saw a nice little wooden house, 
that no one lived in. 

“Now, if I could only get over there I’d be safe,” 
said the old gentleman rabbit. “I guess I’ll wade 
across.” 

Well, he started to do so, but he soon found that 
the water was too deep for him to wade. It was 
over his head. 

“I’ll have to swim across,” said Uncle Wiggily. 

But, as soon as he got ready to do that, he found 
himself in more trouble. For he couldn’t carry his 
crutch and valise across with him if he swam, and 
he didn’t like to leave them on the shore, for fear 
the alligator would get them. 

“Oh, I certainly am in great trouble,” said the 
rabbit. “It’s getting darker and darker, and I have 
no place to stay. I haven’t even any paper with 
which to make me a paper house, but if I could 
only get across to the wooden house, I’d be safe.” 

And, just as he spoke, there came a little puff of 
133 



Uncle Wiggily in a Paper Boat 


wind, and lo and behold! a nice piece of paper was 
blown right down out of a tree, where it had been 
caught on a branch. Right at Uncle Wiggily’s 
side it fell; that paper did. 

“Oh, joy!” the rabbit gentleman cried. “Here is 
paper to make me a house with.” But when he 
looked more closely at it, he saw that it wasn’t big 
enough for a house, and it wasn’t the kind of paper 
that would keep out the rain, either. 

“That will never do,” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly. 
“Ah! But I have an idea. I will make me a paper 
boat, as Billie Goat once did, and in the boat I’ll 
sail across the stream, and sleep in the little wooden 
house.” 

So he folded up the paper, first like a soldier’s 
hat, and then like a fireman’s hat, and then he 
pulled on the two ends, and, presto chango! he had 
a paper boat. Then he took his crutch, and stuck it 
up in the middle of the boat, and put a piece of 
paper on the crutch, and he had a sail. Then he 
put the boat in the water, and got in it himself. I 
mean he got in the boat, not the water—with his 
valise. 

“Here we go!” cried the old gentleman rabbit, 
and he shoved the boat out from the shore. The 
wind caught in the little paper sail, and away 
.Uncle Wiggily went, as fine as fine could be. 

“I’ll soon be on the other shore,” he said, and 
134 



Uncle Wiggily in a Paper Boat 


just then he looked down, and he saw some water 
coming inside the boat. “Hum! That’s bad,” he 
cried. “I’m afraid my boat is leaking.” 

The wind blew harder, and the boat went faster, 
but more water came in, for you see the paper was 
sort of melting, and falling apart, like an ice cream 
cone, for it wasn’t the waxed kind of paper from 
the inside of cracker boxes—the kind that water 
ivon’t hurt. 

Well, the boat began to sink, and the water came 
up to Uncle Wiggily’s knees, and then, all of a sud¬ 
den there was a funny sound on shore, a snipping 
snooping woofing-woofing sound, and into the water 
jumped the alligator with the skiller-scalery, swoop¬ 
ing tail. 

“Now I’ve got you!” he cried, snapping his jaws 
^t the poor old gentleman rabbit. And really it 
did seem as if Uncle Wiggily would be eaten up. 
But you never can tell what is going to happen in 
this world; never indeed. 

All of a sudden, just as the paper boat was melt¬ 
ing all to pieces, and Uncle Wiggily was trying, 
as best he could, to swim to shore with his crutch 
and valise, and just as the alligator was going to 
grab him, along came the big, kind goldfish. 

“Jump on my back, Uncle Wiggily!” cried the 
fish, and the rabbit did so, in the twinkling of an 
eye. And before the alligator could grab Uncle 
135 



Uncle Wiggily in a Paper Boat 


Wiggily, the goldfish swam to shore with him, and 
he was safe. And the alligator got some soap in 
his eye, from washing his face too hard, and went 
sloshing away as mad as could be, but it served him 
right. And Uncle Wiggily slept safely in the 
wooden house all night, and dreamed about finding 
a gold dollar. 

Now in case the banana man brings me some 
pink oranges for the elephant’s little boy, I’ll you 
in another story about Uncle Wiggily and the mud 
pie. 


136 



STORY XXII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MUD PIE 

U NCLE WIGGILY slept very soundly that 
night in the little wooden house, across on 
the other side of the brook, where the 
alligator tried to catch him, but didn’t. And when 
he awakened in the morning the rabbit traveler 
wondered what he was going to have for breakfast. 
But he didn’t wonder very long. 

For, as soon as he had gotten up, and had washed 
his paws and face, and combed out his ears—oh, 
dear me—I mean his whiskers—as soon as he had 
done that, he heard a knock on the door. 

“Oh, my, suz dud and a bottle of milk!” ex¬ 
claimed the old gentleman rabbit. “I hope that 
isn’t the scary-flary alligator again.” 

So he peeped out of the window, but to his sur¬ 
prise, he didn’t see any one. 

“I’m sure I heard a knock,” he said, “but I guess 
I was mistaken.” 

Well, he was going over to his valise to see if it 
137 


Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Pie 


had in it anything to eat, when the knock again 
sounded on the door. 

“No, I wasn’t mistaken,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“I wonder who that can be? I’ll peep, and find 
out.” 

So he hid behind the window curtain, and kept 
a close watch, and the first things he saw were 
some little stones flying through the air. And they 
hit against the front door with a rattlety-bang, and 
it was these stones that had made the sound that 
was like a knock. 

“Oh! it must be some bad boys after me,” 
thought the poor old gentleman rabbit. “My! I 
do seem to be haying a dreadful time seeking my 
fortune. There is always some kind of trouble.” 

And then more stones came through the air, and 
banged on the door and this time Uncle Wiggily 
saw that they came from the stream, and, what is 
more, he saw the goldfish throwing the stones and 
pebbles out of the brook with his tail. Then the 
rabbit knew it was all right, for the goldfish was a 
friend of his, so he ran out. 

“Were you throwing stones at the house?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily. 

“Yes,” replied the fish, “it was the only way in 
which I could knock on your door. You see I dare 
not leave the water, and I wanted you to know that 
I had some breakfast for you.” 

138 



Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Pie 


And with that the kind goldfish took a little 
basket, made of watercress, from off his left front 
fin, and handed Uncle Wiggily the basket, not his 
fin, for he needed that to swim with. 

“You’ll find some cabbage-salad with snorkery- 
snickery ell-grass dressing on it, some water-lily 
cake, and some moss covered eggs for your break¬ 
fast,” said the fish. “And I wish you good luck on 
your travels to-day.” 

“Thank you very much,” said Uncle Wiggily, 
“and I am very much obliged to you for saving me 
from the alligator last night.” 

“Pray do not mention it,” spoke the fish most 
condescendingly. “I always like to help my 
friends.” And with that he swam away, and Uncle 
Wiggily ate his breakfast, and then, taking his 
crutch and valise, he set off on his travels again. 

He hopped on for some time, and finally he came 
to a place where there were some high, prickly 
bramble-briar bushes. 

“I will rest here in their shade a bit,” thought 
the old gentleman rabbit, “and then I will go on.” 

So he sat down, and, as the sun was quite warm, 
he fell asleep before he knew it. But he was sud¬ 
denly awakened by a hissing sound, just like when 
steam comes out of the parlor radiator on a frosty 
night. Then a voice cried: 

139 



Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Pie 


“Now I’ve got you!” 

Uncle Wiggily looked up, and there was a big 
snake, just going to grab him. But do you s’pose 
the rabbit waited for that snake? Not a bit of it. 
Catching up his crutch and valise, he gave one 
tremendous and extraordinary springery-spring, 
and over the prickery stickery briar and bramble 
bushes he went, flying through the air, and the 
snake couldn't get him. 

But when Uncle Wiggily came down on the other 
side of the bushes! Oh, my! that was a different 
story. For where do you imagine he landed? 
Where, indeed, but right in the middle of a big 
mud pie that two little hedgehog boys were mak¬ 
ing there. Yes, sir, right into the middle of that 
squasher-squaw T shery mud pie fell Uncle Wiggily. 

Oh! How the mud splashed up! It went all 
over the rabbit, and some got on the two little 
hedgehog boys. 

Well, they were as surprised as anything when 
they saw a nice old gentleman rabbit come down 
in the middle of their pie, and at first they thought 
he had done it on purpose. 

“Let’s stick him full of our stickery-stoekery 
quills,” said one hedgehog boy. 

“Yes, and then let’s pull his ears,” said the other 
hedgehog boy. But, mind you, they didn’t really 
140 



Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Pie 


mean anything bad, only, perhaps, they thought 
TJncle Wiggily was a savage fox, or a little white 
bear. 

“Oh, boys, I’m sorry!” said the old gentleman 
rabbit as soon as he could dig the mud out of his 
mouth. 

“What made you do it?” asked the biggest hedge¬ 
hog boy, wiping some mud out of his eye. 

“Yes, our pie is all spoiled,” said his brother, 
“and we were just going to bake it.” 

“Oh, it is too bad!” said Uncle Wiggily, sorrow¬ 
fully, “but you see I had to get away from that 
snake, and I didn’t have time to look where I was 
jumping. I’m glad, though, that I left the snake 
on the other side of the bushes.” 

“So are we,” said the two hedgehog boys. 

“But you didn’t leave me there. I’m here!” sud¬ 
denly cried a voice, and out wiggled the snake 
again. He started to catch the rabbit, but those 
two brave hedgehog boys grabbed up a lot of mud, 
and plastered it in that snake’s eyes so that he 
couldn’t see, and he had to wiggle down to the 
pond to wash it out. 

Then Uncle Wiggily and the boys were safe, and 
he helped them to make another mud pie, with 
stones in for raisins, and he gave them some of his 
real cherry pie, and oh! how they liked it! Then 
141 



Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Pie 


they were all happy, and Uncle Wiggily stayed at 
the hedgehog’s house until the next morning. 

Now, in case the little girl in the next house 
brings me a watermelon ice cream cone with a rose 
on top, I’ll tell you on the next page about Uncle 
Wiggily and the elephant. 


142 



STORY XXIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ELEPHANT 

U NCLE WIGGILY didn’t sleep very well at 
the hedgehog’s house that night, and the 
reason for it was this: You see they 
didn’t have many beds there, and first the rabbit 
gentleman lay down with the smallest little porcu¬ 
pine boy, in his bed. 

But pretty soon, along about in the middle of the 
night, this little boy got to dreaming that he was a 
rubber ball. And he rolled over in the bed, and 
he rolled up against Uncle Wiggily, and the stick- 
ery-stickers from the little hedgehog chap stuck in 
the old gentleman rabbit. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “I think I’ll 
have to go and sleep with your brother Jimmie.” 

So he went over to the other hedgehog boy’s bed, 
but land sakes flopsy-dub and a basket of soap 
bubbles! 

As soon as the rabbit got in there that other 
hedgehog chap began to dream that he was a jump¬ 
ing jack, and so he dumped up and down, and he 
143 


Uncle Wiggily and the Elephant 


jumped on top of Uncle Wiggily, and stuck more 
stickery-stickers in him, until at last the rabbit got 
up and said: 

“Oh, dear, I guess I’ll have to go to sleep on the 
floor.” 

So he did that, putting his head on his satchel 
for a pillow and pulling his red-white-and-blue- 
striped-barber-pole crutch oyer him for a cover. 
And, in the morning, he felt a little better. 

“Well, I think I will travel on once more,” said 
Uncle Wiggily after a breakfast of strawberries, 
and mush and milk. “I may find my fortune to¬ 
day.” 

The hedgehog boys wanted him to stay with them, 
and make more mud pies, or even a cherry one, but 
the rabbit gentleman said he had no time. So off 
he went over hills and down dales, and along 
through the woods. 

Pretty soon, not so very long, just as Uncle Wig¬ 
gily was walking behind a big rock, as large as a 
house, he heard some one crying. Oh, such a loud 
crying voice as it was, and the old rabbit gentle¬ 
man was a bit frightened. 

“For it souds like a giant crying,” he said to 
himself. “And if it’s a giant he may be a bad one, 
who would hurt me. I guess I’ll run back the 
other way.” 

Well, he started to run, but, just as he did so, 
144 



Uncle Wiggily and the Elephant 


he heard the voice crying again, and this time it 
said: 

“Oh, dear me! Oh, if some one would only help 
me! Oh, I am in such trouble!” 

“Come, I don’t believe that is a giant after all,” 
thought the rabbit. “It may be Sammie Littletail, 
who has grown to be such a big boy that I won’t 
know him any more.” So he took a careful look, 
but instead of seeing his little rabbit nephew, he 
saw a big elephant, sitting on the ground, crying 
as hard as he could cry. 

Now, you know, when an elephant cries it isn’t 
like when you cry once in a great while, or when 
baby cries every day. No, indeed! An elephant 
cries so very many tears that if you don’t have a 
water pail near you, to catch them, you may get 
your feet wet; that is, if you don’t have on rubbers. 

Well, that’s the way it was this time. The ele¬ 
phant was crying big, salty tears, about the size 
of rubber balls, and they were rolling down from 
his eyes and along his trunk, which was like a fire 
engine hose, until there was quite a little stream 
of water flowing down the hill toward the rabbit. 

“Oh, please don’t cry any more!” called Uncle 
Wiggily. 

“Why not?” asked the elephant, sadly-like, and 
he cried harder than before. 

“Because if you do,” replied the rabbit, “I will 

145 



Uncle Wiggily and the Elephant 


have to get a pair of rubber boots, in which to wade 
out to see you.” 

“I’ll try to stop,” said the big animal, but, in¬ 
stead, he cried harder than before, boo-hooing and 
hoo-booing, until you would have thought it was 
raining, and Uncle Wiggily wished he had an 
umbrella. 

“Why, whatever is the matter?” asked the rabbit. 

“Oh, I stepped on a tack,” answered the ele¬ 
phant, “and it is sticking in my foot. I can’t 
walk, and I can’t dance and I can’t get back to the 
circus. Oh, dear! Oh, dear me, suz-dud and a red 
balloon! Oh, how miserable I am!” 

“Too bad,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Was it a large 
tack that you stepped on?” 

“Was it?” asked the elephant, sort of painful- 
like. “Why, it feels as big as a dishpan in my foot. 
Here, you look, and perhaps you can pull it out.” 

He raised up one of his big feet, which were about 
as large as a washtub full of clothes, on Monday 
morning, and he held it out to Uncle Wiggily. 

“Why, I can’t see anything here,” said the rabbit, 
looking at the big foot through his spectacles. 

“Oh, dear! It’s there all right!” cried the ele¬ 
phant. “It feels like two washtubs now,” and he 
began to cry some more. 

“Here! Hold on, if you please!” shouted Uncle 
Wiggily. “I’ll have to make a boat, if you keep on 
116 



Uncle Wiggily and the Elephant 


shedding so many tears, for there will be a lake 
here. Wait, I’ll look once more.” 

So he looked again, and this time he saw just 
the little, tinest, baby-tack you can imagine—about 
the size of a pinhead—sticking in the elephant’s 
foot. 

“Wait! I have it! Was this it?” suddenly asked 
the rabbit, as he took hold of the tack in his paw 
and pulled it out. 

“That’s it!” exclaimed the elephant, waving his 
trunk. “It’s out! Oh, how much better I feel. 
Whoop-de-doodle-do!” and then he felt so fine that 
he began to dance. Then, all of a sudden, he began 
to cry once more. 

“Why, what in the world is the matter now?” 
asked Uncle Wiggily, wishing he had a pail, so that 
he might catch the elephant’s salty tears. 

“Oh, I feel so happy that I can’t help crying, be¬ 
cause my pain is gone!” exclaimed the big creature. 
Then he cried about forty-’leven bushels of tears, 
and a milk bottle full besides, and there was a 
little pond around him, and Uncle Wiggily was in 
it up to his neck. 

Then, all of a sudden, in came swimming the alli¬ 
gator, right toward the rabbit. 

“Ah, now I’ll get you!” cried the skillery-scalery 
beast. 

“No you won’t!” shouted the elephant, “Uncle 
147 



Uncle Wiggily and the Elephant 


Wiggily is my friend!” So he put his trunk down 
in the water, and sucked it all up, and then he 
squirted it over the trees. That left the alligator 
on dry land, and then the elephant grabbed the 
alligator up in his strong trunk, and tossed him 
into the briar bushes, scalery-ailery tail and all, 
and the alligator crawled away after a while. 

So that’s how Uncle Wiggily was saved from the 
alligator by the crying elephant, and the rabbit and 
elephant traveled on together for some days. Now, 
as I see the sand man coming, I must stop. 

But, in case I don’t fall into the washtub with 
my new suit on, and get it all colored sky-blue-pink, 
so I can’t go to the picnic, I’ll tell you next about 
Uncle Wiggily and the cherry tree. 


148 



STORY XXIV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHERRY TREE 

U NCLE WIGGILY LONGEARS and the cry¬ 
ing elephant were walking along together 
one day, talking about the weather, and 
■wondering if it would rain, and all things like that. 
Only the elephant wasn’t crying any more, for the 
rabbit had pulled the tack that was hurting him, 
out of the big beast’s foot, you remember. 

“We’ll travel on together to find our fortune, and 
look for adventures,” said the elephant, as he 
capered about, and stood on his hind legs, because 
he felt so jolly. “Won’t we have fun, Uncle Wig- 
giiy?” 

“Well, we may,” spoke the old gentleman rabbit, 
“but I don’t see how we are going to carry along 
on our travels enough for us to eat. Of course, I 
don’t need much, but you are such a big chap that 
you will have to have quite a lot, and my valise is 
small.” 

“Don’t worry about that,” replied the elephant. 
“Of course you might think I could carry a lot of 
149 


Uncle Wiggily and the Cherry Tree 


pie and cake and bread and butter in my trunk, 
but really I can’t you know, for about all that my 
trunk will hold is water. However, I think I can 
pick what hay and grass I want from along the 
road.” 

“Yes, and perhaps we may meet a man with a 
hot peanut wagon, once in a while,” suggested 
Uncle Wiggily, “and he may give you some pea¬ 
nuts.” 

“Oh, joy! I hope he does!” cried the big fellow. 
“I just love hot peanuts!” Well, they went on to¬ 
gether for some time, when, all of a sudden a man 
jumped out from behind the bushes, and exclaimed: 

“Ha, Mr. Elephant! I’ve been looking for you. 
Now you come right back with me to the circus 
where you belong.” And he went up to the elephant 
and took hold of his trunk. 

“Oh, I don’t want to go,” whined the tremendous 
creature. “I want to stay with Uncle Wiggily, and 
have some fun.” 

“But you can’t,” said the man. “You are needed 
in the circus. A lot of boys and girls are waiting 
in the tent, to give you peanuts and popcorn.” 

“Well, then, I s’pose I’d better go back,” sighed 
the wobbly animal with the long tusks. “I’ll see 
you again, Uncle Wiggily.” So the elephant said 
good-bye to the rabbit, and went back to the circus 
150 



Uncle Wiggily and tlie Cherry Tree 


with the man, while the rabbit gentleman hopped 
on by himself. 

He hadn’t gone very far before he heard a loud 
“Honk-honk!” in the bushes. 

“Oh, there is another one of those terrible auto¬ 
mobiles !” thought the rabbit. But it wasn’t at all. 
No, it was Grandfather Goosey Gander, and there 
he sat on a flat stone, “honk-honking” through his 
yellow bill as hard as he could, and, at the same 
time crying salty tears that ran down his nose, 
making it all wet. 

“Why, whatever is the matter?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily, as he went up to his friend, the duck-drake 
gentleman. “Have you stepped on a tack, too?” 

“No, it isn’t that,” was the answer. “But I am 
so sick that I don’t know what to do, and I’m 
far from my home, and from my friends, the Wibble- 
wobble family, and, oh, dear! it’s just awful.” 

“Let me look at your tongue,” said the rabbit, 
and when Grandfather Goosey Gander stuck it out, 
Uncle Wiggily said: 

“Why, you have the epizootic very bad. Very 
bad, indeed! But perhaps I can cure you. Let me 
see, I think you need some bread and butter, and 
a cup of catnip tea. I’ll make you some.” 

So Uncle Wiggily made a little fire of sticks, and 
then he found an empty tin tomato can, and he 
boiled some water in it over the fire, and made the 
151 



Uncle Wiggily and the Cherry Tree 


catnip tea. Then he gave some to Grandfather 
Goosey Gander, together with some bread and 
butter. 

“Well, I feel a little better,” said the old gentle¬ 
man duck-drake, when he had eaten, “but I am not 
well yet. It seems to me that if I could have some 
cherry pie I would feel better.” 

“Perhaps you would,” agreed Uncle Wiggily, 
“but, though I know how to make nice cherry pie, 
and though I made some for the hedgehog, I don’t 
see any cherry trees around here, so I can’t make 
you one. There are no cherry trees.” 

“Yes, there is one over there,” said the duck- 
drake, and he waved one foot toward it, while he 
quacked real faint and sorrowful-like. 

“Sure enough, that is a cherry tree,” said Uncle 
W T iggily, as he hopped over and looked at it. “And 
the cherries are ripe, too. Now, if I could only 
get some of them down I could make a cherry pie, 
and cure Grandfather Goosey Gander.” 

But it wasn’t easy to get the cherries off the tree, 
and Uncle Wiggily couldn’t climb up after them. 
So he sat down and looked up at them, hoping some 
would fall off the stems. But none did. 

“Oh, dear, I wonder how I’m going to get them?” 
sighed the rabbit. “Perhaps I can knock off some 
with a stone.” 

So he threw a stone, but no cherries came down. 

152 



Uncle Wiggily and the Cherry Tree 


The stone did, though, and hit Uncle Wiggily on 
the nose, making him sneeze. 

“ Stones are no good!” exclaimed the rabbit. “Fll 
throw up my crutch.” So he threw that into the 
tree, but it brought no cherries down, and the 
crutch, in falling, nearly hit Grandfather Goosey 
Gander, and almost gave him the measles and 
mumps. 

"Well, Fll try and see what throwing up my 
valise will do,” said the rabbit, and he tossed up 
the satchel, but bless you, that stayed up in the 
tree, and didn’t come down at all, neither did any 
cherries. 

"Oh, I’ll have to give up,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
"I’m afraid you can’t have any cherry pie, Grand¬ 
father Goosey.” 

"Oh, then I’ll never get well,” said the old duck- 
drake gentleman sorrowfully. 

"Yes, you will, tool” suddenly cried out<a voice, 
and out from the bushes ran the elephant. "I’ll 
pick the cherries off the tree with my long, nosey 
trunk,” he said, "and you can make all the pie you 
want to, Uncle Wiggily.” 

"Why, I thought you went back to the circus,” 
said the rabbit. 

"No, I ran away from the man,” spoke the ele¬ 
phant. Then he reached up with his long nose, and 
he picked a bushel of red, ripe, sweet delicious 
153 



Uncle Wiggily and tlie Cherry Tree 


cherries in less than a minute. Then he pulled 
down Uncle Wiggily’s valise out of the tree and 
then the old gentleman rabbit made three cherry 
pies. One for Grandfather Goosey Gander, and 
another, a tremendous big one, as large as a wash- 
tub, for the elephant, and a little one for himself. 
Then they ate their pies, and the old gentleman 
duck-drake got well almost at once. So all three 
of them traveled on together, to help the rabbit 
seek his fortune. 

Now in case the ice cream man brings some nice, 
hot roast chestnuts for our canary bird, I’ll tell you 
in another story about Uncle Wiggily, and Grand¬ 
father Goosey Gander. 


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STORY XXY 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND GRANDPA GOOSEY 

O NE day, not very long after the elephant had 
picked the cherries off the tree, so that 
Uncle Wiggily could make the cherry pies 
for Grandpa Goosey, the three friends were travel¬ 
ing along together through a deep, dark, dismal 
woods. 

“Where are we going?” asked the elephant, who 
had run away from the circus man to travel by 
himself. 

“Oh, to some place where we may find our for¬ 
tune,” said the old gentleman rabbit. 

“I would much rather find some snails to eat,” 
said Grandfather Goosey Gander, the old gentle¬ 
man duck, as I shall call him for short. “For I 
am very hungry.” 

“What’s that?” cried the rabbit. “Hungry after 
the nice pie I made for you?” 

“Oh, that was some time ago. I could eat another 
pie right now,” spoke the old duck. But there 
wasn’t any pie for him, so he had to eat a cornmeal 
155 


Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 


sandwich with watercress salad on, and Uncle Wig¬ 
gily ate some carrots and cabbage, and the elephant 
ate a lot of grass from a field—oh! a terrible lot— 
about ten bushels, I guess. 

Then, all at once, as they were walking along 
over a bridge, a man suddenly jumped out from 
behind a tree, and cried: 

“Ah, ha! Now you won’t get away from me, Mr. 
Elephant. This time I am surely going to take you 
back to the circus.” And with that he threw a rope 
around the elephant’s trunk, and led him away. 
The elephant cried so many tears that there was a 
muddy puddle right near the bridge, and the big 
animal begged to be allowed to stay with Uncle 
Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey Gander, but the man 
said it could not be done. 

“Well, then, you and I will have to go on to¬ 
gether,” said the old gentleman rabbit to the duck, 
after a bit. “Perhaps we may find our fortune.” 

“I think I could make money calling out f honk- 
honk!’ on an automobile,” said the grandfather. 
“Jimmie Wibblewobble once did that for a man. 
I think I’ll look for a nice automobile gentleman to 
work for, and if I get money enough we’ll be rich.” 

Well, he looked and looked, but no one seemed to 
want an old duck for an auto horn, and the rabbit 
and Grandfather Goosey Gander kept on traveling 
together, over the fields and through the woods. 

156 



Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 


Pretty soon they came to a place where a June 
bug was sitting on the edge of a stone wall, buzzing 
his wings. 

“Let’s ask him where we can find our fortunes,” 
said Uncle Wiggily. So they asked the June bug. 

“Well,” replied the buzzing creature, “I am not 
3ure, but a little way from here are two roads. 
One or the other might bring you to your fortune. 
One goes to the right, the other to the left hand.” 

“We will take the left hand road,” said Uncle 
Wiggily. “We will go down that for some distance, 
and if we do not find a pot of gold, or some ice 
cream cones at the end of it, we will come back, and 
try the other road.” 

So Uncle Wiggily and Grandfather Goosey Gan¬ 
der went down the left road. On and on they went, 
walking in the dust when there was any dust, and 
in the mud when there was any mud. But they 
didn’t find any gold. 

“Oh, let’s go back and try the other road,” said 
the rabbit gentleman after a bit. “Perhaps that 
will be better.” 

So back they went, stopping on the way to look 
at a big apple tree, to see if there were any ripe 
apples on it. But there was none, so they didn’t 
eat any. And I hope you children do the same this 
summer. Never eat green apples, never, never, 
never! Wait until they are ripe. 

157 



Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 


Well, by and by, after a while, not so very long, 
Uncle Wiggily, who was hopping along on his 
crutch, suddenly exclaimed: 

“Oh, I’ve lost my valise! What shall I do? I 
can’t go on without it, for it has our lunch in it.” 

“I think you left it under the green-apple tree,” 
said the duck. “You had better go back for it, and 
I will wait here in the shade,” for Grandpa Goosey 
knew the rabbit could hop faster than he could 
waddle. 

Back Uncle Wiggily started, and, surely enough, 
he found his valise under the apple tree, where he 
had forgotten it. He picked it up, and was walk¬ 
ing along with it back to where Grandfather Goosey 
Gander was waiting for him when, all of a sudden, 
out from behind a stump came Jennie Chipmunk, 
with a basket of popcorn balls. 

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” she exclaimed. “Don’t 
you want to buy some popcorn balls? Our church 
is having a little fair, and we are all trying to 
earn some money. I am selling popcorn, to help 
the little heathen children buy red-colored hand¬ 
kerchiefs.” 

“Of course, I’ll take some,” said the old gentle¬ 
man rabbit, “popcorn balls, I mean—not children, 
or hankerchiefs,” he said quickly. So he bought a 
pink one, and a white one, and a chocolate colored 
158 



Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 


one, popcorn balls you know—not children—and 
put them in his valise. 

Then Uncle Wiggily sent his love to Sammie and 
Susie Littletail, by Jennie Chipmunk, and off he 
started to go back to where Grandfather Goosey 
Gander was waiting for him. 

Well, something terrible was happening to the 
poor old gentleman duck, and I’ll tell you all about 
it. No sooner had the rabbit gotten near the shady 
tree under which the grandfather gentleman was 
resting, than he heard a cry: 

“Help! Help! Help!” called the duck. “Oh, 
help me quickly, somebody!” 

“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, 
limping along as 'fast as he could. 

“Oh, a bad snake has caught me!” cried the duck. 
“He has wound himself around my legs, and I can’t 
walk, and he is going to eat me up! He jumped 
on me out of the bushes. He will eat me!” 

“He shall never do that!” cried the rabbit, 
bravely. “I will save you.” So he ran up to that 
snake, but the snake stuck out his tongue, like a 
fork, at the rabbit, and Uncle Wiggily was fright¬ 
ened. Then he tried to hit the snake with a stick, 
but the crawly creature hid down behind Grand¬ 
father Goosey, and so got out of the way. 

“I have it!” suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily. “The 
popcorn balls, Snakes love them! I’ll make him 
159 



Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 


eat them, and then he’ll let Grandpa Goosey go.” 
So from his valise the brave rabbit took the red 
and the white and the chocolate colored popcorn 
balls, and he rolled them along the ground, close 
to the snake’s nose. And the snake smelled them, 
and he was so hungry for them that he uncoiLed 
himself from Grandfather Goosey’s legs, and let 
the old gentleman duck go. And the snake chased 
after the corn balls and ate them all up, and then 
he didn’t want anything more for a long while, and 
he went to sleep for six months and dreamed about 
turning into a hoop, and so he didn’t bother any¬ 
body. 

So that’s how Uncle Wiggily saved the duck, and 
next, in case the pretty baby across the street 
doesn’t fall down and bump its nose, I’ll tell you 
about Uncle Wiggily and the ice cream cones. 


160 



STORY XXVI 


UNCLE WIGGILY’S ICE CREAM CONES 

I T DIDN’T take Uncle Wiggily and Grandfather 
Goosey Gander long to get away from the 
place where the bad snake was, let me tell you, 
even if the crawly creature had eaten three popcorn 
balls, and would sleep for six months. 

“This is no place for us,” said the rabbit. “We 
must see if we can’t find our fortune somewhere 
else.” 

“I believe you,” spoke Grandfather Goosey, rub¬ 
bing his yellow legs, where the snake had wound 
tight around him like a clothesline. “We’ll look 
for a place in which to stay to-night, and we’ll see 
what we can find to-morrow.” 

Well, they hurried on for some time, and pretty 
soon it began to get dark, and they couldn’t find 
any place to stay. 

“I guess I’ll have to dig a hole in the ground, 
and make a burrow,” said the rabbit. 

“Oh, but I couldn’t stay underground,” said the 
duck. “I’m used to sleeping in a wooden house.” 
161 


Uncle Wiggily’s Ice Cream Cones 


“ That’s so,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Well, if I 
had some paper I could make you a paper house, 
but I haven’t any, so I don’t know what to do.” 

And just then, away in the air, there sounded a 
voice saying: 

“Caw! Caw! Caw!” 

“Ha! That’s a crow,” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. 
“There must be green corn that is ready to pull up 
somewhere around here.” 

“There is,” said the black crow, flying down. “I 
know a nice field of corn that a farmer has planted, 
and to-morrow I am going to pick some.” 

“But aren’t you afraid of the scarecrow?” asked 
the duck. 

“No; I’m not,” said the crow. “The scarecrow is 
only some old clothes stuffed with straw, and it is 
set out in the field to drive us crows away. We’re 
not a bit afraid of it. Would you be?” 

“No, of course not,” answered Grandfather 
Goosey Gander. “But then, you see, I’m not a crow 
—the scary figure wasn’t meant for me.” 

“Then you can stay in one of the pockets of the 
scarecrow’s coat all night,” said the crow. “It will 
be a good place for you to sleep.” 

“The very thing!” cried Uncle Wiggily. So that 
night he dug himself a little house under the 
ground, and the duck gentleman flew up, and got 
inside the pocket of the old coat which the scare* 
162 



Uncle Wiggily’s Ice Cream Cones 


crow figure wore, and there the duck stayed all 
night, sleeping very soundly. 

“Well, now we’ll travel on again,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, the next morning after breakfast. So he 
and Grandfather Goosey started off. Well, pretty 
soon it became hotter and hotter, for the sun was 
just beaming down as hard as it could, and Uncle 
Wiggily exclaimed: 

“I know what would taste good! An ice cream 
cone for each of us. Wait here, grandfather, and 
I’ll get two of them.” 

“Fine!” cried the grandfather duck. “But you 
seem to do all the hopping around, Uncle Wiggily. 
Why can’t I go, while you rest?” 

“Oh, I don’t in the least mind going,” replied 
the kind rabbit. “Besides, while I do not say it to 
be proud, and far be it from me to boast, I can go 
a little faster than you can in one hop. So I’ll go.” 

And go he did, leaving his valise in charge of 
Grandfather Goosey, who sat down with it, under a 
shady tree. Pretty soon the old gentleman rabbit 
came to a little ice cream store, that stood beside 
the road, right near a little pond of water, where 
the ice-cream-man could wash his dishes when he 
had to make them clean. 

“I’ll have two, nice, big, cold strawberry ice 
cream cones, and please put plenty of ice cream in 
them,” said Uncle Wiggily to the man. 

163 



JJncle Wiggily’s Ice Cream Cones 


“Eight yon are!” cried the ice-cream-man in a 
jolly voice, and, say, I just wish you could have 
seen those cones! They were piled up heaping 
full of ice cream. Oh, my! It just makes me hun¬ 
gry to write about them. 

Well, Uncle Wiggily, carefully carrying the 
cones, started to hop back to where he had left 
Grandfather Goosey. He hadn’t gone far before he 
heard a growling voice cry out: 

“Hold on there a moment, Uncle Wiggily!” 

“Why?” asked the rabbit. 

“Because I want to see what you’ve got,” was the 
answer. “Ah, I see ice cream cones!” and with 
that a great, big, black bear jumped out of the 
bushes, and stood right in front of Uncle Wiggily. 

“Let me pass!” cried the rabbit, holding the ice 
cream cones so that the bear couldn’t get them. 

“Indeed I will not!” cried the furry creature. 
“Ice cream cones, indeed! If there is one thing 
that I’m fonder of than another, ice cream cones 
is it! Let me taste one!” 

Then before the rabbit could do anything, that 
bad bear took one ice cream cone right away from 
him. And that bear did more than that, so he did. 
He stuck his long, red tongue down inside the cone, 
and he licked out every bit of cream, with one, 
long lick. 

“My but that’s good!” he cried, smacking his lips. 

164 



Uncle Wiggily’s Ice Cream Cones 


“I guess Pll try the second one,” he said, and he 
dropped the empty cone, not eating it, mind you, 
and he took the other full cone away from poor 
Uncle Wiggily before the rabbit gentleman could 
stand on his head, or even wave his short tail. 

“Oh, don’t eat that cone. It belongs to Grand¬ 
father Goosey,” cried the rabbit, sadly-like. 

“Too late!” cried the bear, in a growlery voice. 
“Here it goes!” and with that he stuck his long, 
red tongue down inside the second cone, and with 
one lick he licked all the ice cream out and threw 
the empty cone on the ground. 

“Now I feel good and hungry, and I guess I’ll 
eat you,” cried the bear. He made a grab for the 
poor gentleman rabbit, and folded him tight in his 
paws. But before that Uncle Wiggily had reached 
down and had picked up the two empty ice cream 
cones. 

“Oh, let me go!” cried Uncle Wiggily to the bear. 

“Indeed I’ll not!” shouted the savage creature. 
“I want you for supper.” 

Well, he was just going to eat Uncle Wiggily 
up, wdien that brave rabbit just took the sharp 
points of those two empty ice cream cones, and he 
stuck them in the bear’s ticklish ribs, and Uncle 
Wiggily tickled the bear so that the furry, savage 
creature sneezed out loud, and laughed so hard 
that Uncle Wiggily easily slipped out of his paws, 
165 



Uncle Wiggily’s Ice Cream Cones 


and hopped away before he could be caught again. 

So that’s how the rabbit got safely away, and 
the empty ice cream cones were of some use after 
all. But Uncle Wiggily wondered how he could 
get a full one for Grandfather Goosey Gander, and 
how he did I’ll tell you pretty soon, when, in case 
a butterfly doesn’t bite a hole in my straw hat, the 
next story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the 
red ants. 


166 



STORY XXYII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED ANTS 

W HEN Uncle Wiggily got to where Grand¬ 
father Goosey Gander was waiting for 
him, under the shady tree, the old gentle¬ 
man duck jumped up and cried out: 

“Oh, how glad I am to see you! I’ve just been 
wdshing you would hurry back with those ice cream 
cones. My! I never knew the weather to be so 
warm at this time of the year. Oh, won’t they taste 
most delicious—those cones!” 

You see he didn’t yet know what the bear had 
done—eaten all the ice cream out of the cones, as 
I told you in the other story. 

“Oh, dear!” cried the rabbit. “How sorry I am 
to have to disappoint you, Grandfather, but there 
is no ice cream!” 

“No ice cream!” cried the alligator—oh, dear me! 
I mean the duck. “No ice cream?” 

“Not a bit,” said Uncle Wiggily, and then he 
told about what the savage bear-creature had done, 
and also how he had used the cones to tickle him. 
1G7 


Uncle Wiggily and the Red Ants 


“Well, that’s too bad,” said Grandfather Goosey, 
“but here, I’ll give you money to buy more cones 
with,” and he put his hand in his poccket, but lo 
and behold! he had lost all his money. 

“Never mind, perhaps I have some pennies,” said 
the rabbit; so he looked, but, oh, dear me, suz-dud 
and the mustard pot! All of Uncle Wiggily’s money 
was gone, too. 

“Well, I guess we can’t get any ice cream cones 
this week,” said the old gentleman duck. “We’ll 
have to drink water.” 

“Oh, no you won’t,” said a buzzing voice. “I’ll 
get you each an ice cream cone, because you have 
always been so kind—both of you.” And with that 
out from the bushes flew a big, sweet, honey bee, 
with a load of honey. 

“Have you got any ice cream cones, Mr. Bee?” 
asked the rabbit. 

“No, but I have sweet honey, and if I go down 
to the ice cream cone store, and give the man some 
of my honey he’ll give me three cones, and there’ll 
be one for you and one for me and-” 

“One for Sister Sallie!” interrupted Grandfather 
Goosey. “I wish she was here now.” 

“She could have a cone if she was here,” said the 
honey bee, “as I could get four. But, as long as 
she is not, the extra cone will go to you, Grandpa. 

188 




Uncle Wiggily and the Red Ants 


Now, come on, and I’ll take my honey to the ice¬ 
cream-cone-man.” 

So they went with him and on the way the bee 
sung a funny little song like this : 

“I buzz, buzz, buzz 
All day long. 

I make my honey 
Good and strong. 

I fly about 
To every flower 

And sometimes stay 
’Most half an hour.” 

Uncle Wiggily didn’t know whether or not the 
bee was really in earnest about what he said, but, 
surely enough, when they got to the ice cream store, 
the man took the bee’s honey, and handed out four 
ice cream cones, each larger than the first ones. 
Two were for the duck as he was so fond of them. 

“Oh, let’s eat them here, so that if the bear meets 
us he can’t take them away,” suggested Grand¬ 
father Goosey, and they did. Then the bee flew 
home to his hive, and Uncle Wiggily and the old 
gentleman duck found a nice place to sleep under 
a haystack. 

In the morning Grandfather Goosey said he 
169 



Uncle Wiggily and the Red Ants 


thought he had better go back home, as he had 
traveled enough. He wanted the rabbit to come 
with him, but Uncle Wiggily said: 

“No, I have not yet found my fortune, and until 
I do I will keep on traveling.” So he kept on, and 
the duck went home. 

W T ell, it was about two days after that when, 
along toward evening, as Uncle Wiggily was walk¬ 
ing down the road, he saw a real big house standing 
beside a lake. Oh, it was a very big house, about 
as big as a mountain, and the chimney on it was 
so tall as almost to reach the sky. 

“Hum! I wonder who lives there?” said Uncle 
Wiggily. “Perhaps I can find my fortune in that 
house.” 

“Oh, no; never go there!” cried a voice down on 
the ground, and, looking toward his toes, Uncle 
Wiggily saw a little red ant. 

“Ah, ha! Why shouldn’t I go up to the big house, 
little red ant?” asked the rabbit. 

“Because a monstrous giant lives there,” was the 
answer, “and he could eat you up at one mouthful. 
So stay away.” 

“I guess I will,” said the rabbit. “But I wonder 
where I can sleep to-night. I guess I’ll go-” 

“Oh, look out! Look out!” cried another red 
ant. “There is the giant coming now.” 

Uncle Wiggily looked, and he saw something 
170 




Uncle Wiggily and the Red Ants 


like a big tree moving, and that was the giant. 
Then he felt the ground trembling as if a railroad 
train was rumbling past, and he heard a noise like 
thunder, and that was the giant walking and speak¬ 
ing: 

“I smell rabbits! I smell rabbits!” cried the 
giant. “I must have them for supper!” Then he 
came on straight to where Uncle Wiggily was, but 
he hadn’t yet seen him. 

“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” cried 
the bunny. “Let me hide behind that stone.” He 
made a jump for a rock, taking his valise and crutch 
with him, but the first red ant said: 

“It is no good hiding there, Uncle Wiggily, for 
the giant can see you.” 

“Oh, what shall I do?” he asked again, trembling 
with fear. 

“I know!” cried the second little red ant. “Let’s 
all bring grains of sand, and cover Uncle Wiggily 
up, leaving just a little hole for his nose, so he can 
breathe. Then the giant won’t see him. It will be 
like down at the seashore, when they cover people 
on the beach up with the sand.” 

“Oh, it will take many grains of sand to cover 
the rabbit,” said the first red ant, but still they 
were not discouraged. The first two ants called 
their brothers and sisters, and aunts, and uncles, 
and papas, and mammas, and cousins, and nephews, 
171 



Uncle Wiggily and tlie Red Ants 


and forty-second granduncles. Soon there were 
twenty-two million four hundred and sixty-seven 
thousand, eight hundred and ninety-one ants, and 
a little baby ant, who counted as a half a one, and 
he carried baby grains of dirt. 

Then each big ant took up a grain of sand, and 
then they all hurried up, and put them on Uncle 
Wiggily, w T ho stretched out in the grass. Now all 
those ants together could carry lots of sand, you 
see, and soon the rabbit was completely buried from 
sight, all but the tip of his nose, so he could breathe, 
and when the giant came rumbling, stumbling by, 
he couldn’t see the bunny, and so he didn’t eat him. 
And, of course, the giant didn’t eat the ants, either 
for he didn’t like them. 

“Hum! I thought I smelled a rabbit, but I guess 
I was mistaken,” said the giant, grumbling and 
growling, as he tramped around. 

And that’s how Uncle Wiggily was saved, and 
pretty soon, if there isn’t any sand in my rice 
pudding, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the 
bad giant. 


172 



STORY XXVIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAD GIANT 

D O YOU remember about tbe giant, of whom 
I told you a little while ago, and how he 
couldn’t find Uncle Wiggily, because the 
rabbit was covered with sand that the ants carried? 
Yes, I guess you do remember. Well, now I’m go¬ 
ing to tell you what that giant did. 

At first he was real surprised, because he couldn’t 
find the bunny-rabbit, and he tramped around, mak¬ 
ing the ground shake with his heavy steps, and 
growling in his rumbling voice until you would 
have thought that it was thundering. 

“My, my!” growled the giant. “To think that 
I can’t have a rabbit supper after all. Oh, I’m so 
hungry that I could eat fourteen thousand, seven 
hundred and eighty-seven rabbits, and part of 
another one. But I guess I’ll have to take a bar¬ 
rel of milk and a wagon load of crackers for my 
supper.” 

So that’s what he did, and my how much he ate! 
Well, after the giant had gone away, Uncle Wig- 
173 


Uncle Wiggily and the Bad Giant 


gily crawled out from under the sand, and he said 
to the ants: 

“I guess I’d better not stay around here, for it 
is too dangerous. I’ll never find my fortune here, 
and if that giant were to see me he’d step on me, 
and make me as flat as a sheet of paper. I’m go- 
ing.” 

“But wait,” said the biggest ant of all. “You 
know there are two giants around here. One is a 
good one, and one is bad. Now if you go to the 
good giant I’m sure he will help you find your for¬ 
tune.” 

“I’ll try it,” said the rabbit. “Where does the 
good giant live?” 

“Just up the hill, in that house where you see the 
flag,” said the big ant, as she ate two crumbs of 
bread and jam. “That’s where the good giant lives. 
You must go where you see the fluttering flag, and 
you may find your fortune.” 

“I will,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I’ll go in the 
morning, the first thing after breakfast.” 

So the next morning he started off. But in the 
night something had happened and the rabbit 
didn’t know a thing about it. After dark the bad 
giant got up, and he went over, and took the flag 
from the pole in front of the house of the good 
giant, and hoisted it up over his own house. 

“I haven’t any flag of my own,” said the bad 
174 



Uncle Wiggily and the Bad Giant 


giant, “so I will take his.” For yon see, the two 
giants lived not far apart. In fact they were 
neighbors, but they were very different, one from 
the other, for one was kind and the other was cruel. 

So it happened, that when Uncle Wiggily started 
to go to the giant’s house he looked for the fluttering 
flag, and when he saw it on the bad giant’s house he 
didn’t know any better, but he thought it was the 
home of the good giant. 

Well, the old gentleman rabbit walked on and on, 
having said good-by to the ants, and pretty soon 
he was right close to the bad giant’s house. But, 
all the while, he thought it was the good giant’s 
place—so don’t forget that. 

“I wonder what sort of a fortune he’ll give me,” 
thought the rabbit. “I hope I soon get rich, so I 
can stop traveling, for I am tired.” 

Well, as he came near the place where the bad 
giant lived he heard a voice singing. And the song, 
which was sung in a deep, gruff, grumbling, growl¬ 
ing voice, went something like this: 

“Oh, bing bang, bung! 

Look out of the way for me. 

For I’m so mad, 

I feel so bad, 

I could eat a hickory tree! 

175 



[Uncle Wiggily and the Bad Giant 


Oh, snip, snap, snoop! 

Get off nay big front stoop, 

Or I’ll tear my hair 
In wild despair, 

And burn you with hot soup!” 

“My, that’s a queer song for a good giant to 
sing,” thought Uncle Wiggily. “But perhaps he 
just sings that for fun. I’m sure I’ll find him a 
jolly enough fellow, when I get to know him.” 

Well, he went on a little farther, and pretty soon 
he came to the gate of the castle where the bad 
giant lived. The rabbit looked about, and saw no 
one there, so he kept right on, until, all of a sud¬ 
den, he felt as if a big balloon had swooped down 
out of the sky, and had lifted him up. Higher and 
higher he went, until he found himself away up 
toward the roof of the castle, and then he looked 
and he saw two big fingers, about as big as a trol¬ 
ley car, holding him just as you would hold a bug. 

“Oh, who has me?” cried Uncle Wiggily, very 
much frightened. “Let me go, please. Who are 
you?” 

“I am the bad giant,” was the answer, “and if 
I let you go now you’d fall to the ground and be 
killed. So I’ll hold on to you.” 

“Are you the bad giant?” asked the rabbit. 

176 



Uncle Wiggily and the Bad Giant 


“Why, I thought I was coming to the good giant’s 
house. Oh, please let me go!” 

“No, I’m going to keep you,” said the giant. “I 
just took the good giant’s flag to fool you. Now, 
let me see, I think I'll just sprinkle sugar on you 
and eat you all up—no, I’ll use salt—no, I think 
pepper would be better; I feel like pepper to-day.” 

So the bad giant started toward the cupboard 
to get the pepper caster, and poor Uncle Wiggily 
thought it was all up with him. 

“Oh, I wish I’d never thought of coming to see 
any giant, good or bad,” the rabbit gentleman said. 
“Now good-by to all my friends!” 

“Hum! Let me see,” spoke the bad giant, stand¬ 
ing still. “Pepper—no, I think I’ll put some 
mustard on you—no, I’ll try ketchup—no, I mean 
horseradish. Oh, dear, I can’t seem to make up 
my mind what to flavor you with,” and he held 
Uncle Wiggily there in his fingers, away up about 
a hundred feet high in the air, and wondered what 
he’d do with the old gentleman rabbit. 

And it’s a good thing he didn’t eat him right 
away, for that was the means of saving Uncle Wig- 
gily’s life. Bight after breakfast the good giant 
found out that his bad neighbor had taken his flag, 
so he went and told the ants all about it. 

“Oh, then Uncle Wiggily must have been mixed 
up about the flag, and he has gone to the wrong 
177 



Uncle Wiggily and the Bad Giant' 


place, and he’ll be eaten/’ said the big ant. “We 
must save him. Come on, everybody!” 

So all the ants hurried along together, and 
crawled to the castle of the bad giant, and they got 
there just as he was putting some molasses on 
Uncle Wiggily to eat him. And those ants crawled 
all over the giant, on his legs and arms, and nose 
and ears and toes, and they tickled him so that he 
squiggled and wiggled and squirreled and whirled, 
and finally he let Uncle Wiggily fall on a feather 
bed, not hurting him a bit, and the rabbit gentle¬ 
man hopped safely away and the ants crawled with 
him far from the castle of the bad giant. 

So Uncle Wiggily was saved by the ants, and in 
case the trolley car doesn’t run over my stick of 
peppermint candy, and make it look like a lolly- 
pop, I’ll tell you soon about Uncle Wiggily and the 
good giant. 


178 



STORY XXIX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GOOD GIANT 

N OW wliat do you s’pose that bad giant had 
for supper the night after the ants helped 
Uncle Wiggily get away? You’d never 
guess, so I’ll tell you. It was beans—just baked 
beans, and that giant was so disappointed, and al¬ 
together so cut-up about not having rabbit stew, 
that he ate so many beans, that I’m almost afraid 
to tell you just how many. 

But if all the boys in your school were to take 
their bean shooters, and shoot beans out of a bag 
for a million years, and Fourth of July also, that 
giant could eat all of them, and more too—that is, 
if he could get the beans after the boys shot them 
away. 

“Well, I certainly must be more careful after 
this,” said Uncle Wiggily to the ants, as they 
crawled along down the hill with him, when he 
hopped away from the bad giant’s house. 

“Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” said the second size 
big red ant, with black and yellow stripes on his 
179 


Uncle Wiggily and the Good Giant 


stockings. “That bad giant changed the flags, and 
that’s what fooled you. But I guess the good giant 
will have his flag back by to-morrow, and then you 
can go to the right house. We’ll go along and show 
you, and you may get your fortune from him.” 

So, surely enough, the next day, the good giant 
went over and took his flag away from the bad 
giant, and put it upon his own house. 

“Now you’ll be all right,” said the pink ant, with 
purple spots on his necktie. “You won’t make any 
mistake now, Uncle Wiggily. I’m sure the good 
giant w T ill give you a good fortune.” 

“Yes, and he’ll give you lots to eat,” said the 
black ant with white rings around his nose. 

Well, Uncle Wiggily took his valise and his 
crutch and up toward the good giant’s house he 
went, with the ants crawling along in the sand to 
show him the way. 

Pretty soon they came to a big bridge, over a 
stream of water, and this was the beginning of the 
place where the good giant lived. 

“We’ll all have to go back now,” said the purple 
ant, with the green patchwork squares on his 
checks. “If we crossed over the bridge we might 
fall off and be drowned. We’ll go back, but you 
go ahead, and we wish you good luck, Uncle 
Wiggily.” 


180 



JJncle Wiggily and the Good Giant 


“ Indeed we do,” said a white ant with gold 
buckles on her shoes. 

Well, after a little while Uncle Wiggily found 
himself right inside the good giant’s house. And 
oh! what a big place it was. Why, even the door 
mat was so big that it took the rabbit three hops to 
get to the top of it. And that front door! I wish 
you could have seen it! It was as large as one of 
your whole houses, and it was only a door, mind 
you. 

“Hello! hello!” cried Uncle Wiggily, as he 
pounded with his crutch on the floor. “Is any one 
at home?” 

“But no one answered, and there wasn’t a sound 
except the ticking of the clock, and that made as 
much noise as a railroad train going over a bridge, 
for the clock was a big as a church steeple. 

“Hum! No one is home,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“I’ll just sit down and make myself comfortable.” 
So he sat down on the floor by the table that was 
away over his head, and waited for the giant to 
come back. 

And, all of a sudden, the rabbit heard a noise 
like a steam engine going, and he was quite sur«; 
prised, until he happened to look up, and there 
stood a pussy cat as big as a cow, and the cat was 
purring, which made the noise like a steam engine. 

“My, if that’s the size of the cat, what must the 
181 


i 



Uncle Wiggily and the Good Giant 


giant be,” thought the rabbit. “I do hope he’s 
good-natured when he comes home.” 

Well, pretty soon, in a little while, as Uncle 
Wiggily was sitting there, listening to the big cat 
purr, he felt sleepy, and he was just going to sleep, 
when he heard a gentle voice singing: 

“Oh, see the blackbird, sitting in the tree, 

Hear him singing, jolly as can be. 

Now he’ll whistle a pretty little tune, 

Isn’t it delicious in the month of June? 

“Hear the bees a-buzzing, hour by hour, 

Gathering the honey from every little flower. 

The katydid is singing by his own front door, 

Now I’ll have to stop this song—I don’t know any 
more.” 

“Well, whoever that is, he’s a jolly chap,” 
said the rabbit, and with that who should come 
in but the giant himself. 

“Ho! Ho! Whom have we here?” the giant asked, 
looking at Uncle Wiggily. “What do you want, 
my little furry friend with the long ears? You 
must be able to hear very well with them.” 

“I can hear pretty well,” said the rabbit. “But 
I came to seek my fortune.” 

“Fine,” cried the good giant, for he it was. “I’ll 
182 



Uncle Wiggily and the Good Giant 


do all I can for you,” and he laughed so long and 
hard that part of the ceiling and the gas chan¬ 
delier fell down, but the giant caught them in his 
strong hands, and not even the pussy cat was hurt. 
Then the giant sung another song, like the first, 
only different, and he fixed the broken ceiling, and 
said: 

“Now for something to eat! Then w T e’ll talk 
about your fortune. I’ll get you some carrots.” So 
he went out, and pretty soon he came back, carry¬ 
ing ten barrels of carrots in one hand and seven¬ 
teen bushels of cabbage in the other. 

“Here’s a little light lunch for you,” he said to 
Uncle Wiggily. “Eat this, and I’ll get you some 
more, when we have a regular meal.” 

“Oh, why this is more than I could eat in a 
year,” said the rabbit, “but I thank you very much,” 
so he nibbled at one carrot, while the good giant 
ate fifteen thousand seven hundred and eight loaves 
of bread, and two million bushels of jam. Then 
he felt better. 

“So you want to find your fortune, eh?” the 
giant said to the rabbit. “Well, now I’ll help you 
all I can. How would you like to stay here and 
work for me? You have good ears, and you could 
listen for burglars in the night when I am asleep. 
Will you?” 

“I think I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. And he 
183 



JJncle Wiggily and the Good Giant 


was just reaching for another carrot, when suddenly 
from outside sounded a terrible racket. 

“Where is he? Let me get at him! I want him 
right away—that rabbit I mean!” cried a voice, and 
Uncle Wiggily jumped up in great fright, and 
looked for some place to hide. The giant jumped 
up, too, and grabbed his big club. 

But don’t be alarmed. Nothing bad is going to 
happen to our Uncle Wiggily—in fact he is going 
to have lots of fun soon. 

So if my motorboat doesn’t turn upside down 
and spill out the pink lemonade, I’ll tell you in the 
next story about Uncle Wiggily and the giant’s 
little boy. 


184 



« 




















STORY XXX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GIANT’S BOY 

L ET me see, I believe I left off where Uncle 
Wiggily was in the house of the good 
giant, and the old gentleman rabbit 
heard a terrible noise. Didn’t I? 

“My goodness!” exclaimed the rabbit, jumping 
up so quickly that he upset one of the giant’s tooth¬ 
picks, on which he had been sitting for a chair, for 
the giant’s toothpicks were as large as a big chest¬ 
nut tree. “My goodness!” cried Uncle Wiggily, 
“what in the world is that?” 

“I guess it’s my little boy coming home from 
school,” said the good giant as softly as he could, 
but, even then, his voice was like thunder. “He 
must have heard that you were here.” 

“Will he hurt me? Does he love animals?” 
asked the rabbit, for he was getting frightened. 
“Will your little boy be kind to me?” 

“Oh, indeed he will!” cried the good giant. “I 
have taught him to love animals, for you know he 
is so big and strong, even though I do call him my 
185 


Uncle Wiggily and the Giant’s Boy 


little boy, that it would be no trouble for him to 
take a bear or a lion, and squeeze him in one hand 
so that the bear or lion would never hurt any one 
any more. But, just because he is big and strong, 
though not so big and strong as I am, I have 
taught my boy to be kind to the little animals.” 

“Then I will have no fear,” said Uncle Wiggily, 
winking his nose—I mean his eyes—and just then 
the door of the giant’s house opened and in came 
his little boy. 

Well, at first Uncle Wiggily wa3 so frightened 
that he did not know what to do. I wonder what 
you would say if you were suddenly to see a boy 
almost as big as your house, or mine, walk into 
the parlor, and sit down at the piano? Well, that’s 
what the old gentleman rabbit saw. 

“Ah, my little boy is home from school,” said 
the giant, kindly. “Did you have your lessons, 
my son?” 

“Yes, father, I did,” was the answer. “And I 
learned a new song. I'll sing it for you.” 

So he began to play the piano with his little 
finger nail, and still, and with all that, he made as 
much noise as a circus band of music can make 
on a hot day in the tent. Oh, he played terribly 
loud, the giant’s boy did, and Uncle Wiggily had 
to put his paws over his ears, or he might have been 
made deaf. Then the giant’s little boy sang, and 
186 



Uncle Wiggily and the Giant’s Boy 


even when he hummed it the noise was like a thun¬ 
der storm, only different. Now, this is the boy 
giant’s song, and you will have to sing it with all 
your might, as hard as you can, but not if the baby 
is asleep. 


“I am a little fellow, 

But soon I will grow big. 

And then I’ll sit beside the sea, 

And in the white sand dig. 

“I’ll make a hole so very deep, 

To China it will go. 

And then I’ll fill it up with shells 
Wherein the wild waves blow.” 

And with that the giant’s little boy banged so 
hard on the piano with his little finger nail that 
he broke a string, and made a funny sound, like 
a banjo out of tune. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to do that!” the giant’s boy 
cried. “I’m sorry!” 

“Dear me! I wonder when you’ll grow up?” 
asked the giant, sort of sad-like. 

“I think he’s pretty big now,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. And, indeed, the boy-giant was so tall that 
when the rabbit stood up as high as he could stand, 
187 



Uncle Wiggily and the Giant’s Boy 


he only came up to the tip end of the shoe laces on 
the giant boy’s big shoes. 

“Oh, he grows very slowly,” said the giant, and 
then the boy noticed the rabbit for the first time. 
Well, that boy-giant wanted to know all about 
Uncle Wiggily, where he came from and where he 
was going, and all that, and Uncle Wiggily told 
about how he was traveling around to seek his for¬ 
tune. 

“Oh, I believe I know where you can find lots of 
money, Uncle Wiggily,” said the giant’s boy kindly, 
as he reached over and stroked the rabbit’s ears. 
“I have always heard that there is a pot of gold 
at the end of the rainbow. The next time we see 
one, you and I will go out and search for the money. 
Then you will have your fortune, and you won’t 
have to travel around any more.” 

“That will be fine!” cried the rabbit, “for, to 
tell you the truth, I am getting pretty tired of 
going about the country. Still, I will not give 
up until I find my fortune.” 

“All right, But we will have to wait until it 
rains, and then we’ll see where the end of the rain¬ 
bow is,” said the giant’s boy. “Now we will have 
some games together. Let’s play tag.” 

Well, they started to play that, but, land’s sake, 
flopsy dub and a basket of ice cream cones! Uncle 
Wiggily ran here, and there, and everywhere, and 
188 



Uncle Wiggily and the Giant’s Boy 


lie jumped and leaped about so that the giant’s 
little boy couldn’t catch him, for the big-little fel¬ 
low wasn’t very spry on his feet. 

“Oh, I guess we had better not play that game 
any more,” said the boy giant, as he accidentally 
nearly stepped on Uncle Wiggily’s left ear. “I 
might hurt you. Let’s play hide-and-go-seek.” 

But Uncle Wiggily was even better at this game 
than he had been at tag, for he could hide in such 
small holes that the boy giant couldn’t even see 
them, so of course that wouldn’t do for a game. It 
was no fun. 

Then all at once it began to rain. My! how it 
did pour! It rained snips and snails and puppy 
dogs’ tails, with the puppies fast to the tails, of 
course, and the streets were covered with them. 
Then it rained a few ice cream cones, and Uncle 
Wiggily and the giant boy had all they wanted to 
eat, the giant eating fourteen thousand seven hun¬ 
dred and eighty-six, and part of another one, while 
Uncle Wiggily had only two cones. 

“Oh, there is the rainbow!” cried the boy giant 
at last, as he saw the beautiful gold and green and 
orange and red colors in the sky. “Now for the 
pot of gold.” 

So he and Uncle Wiggily started off together to 
find it. But they had not gone very far through 
the woods before they met the papa giant. 

189 



Uncle Wiggily and the Giant’s Boy 


“Where are you going?” he asked of them. 

“To the end of the rainbow to get the pot of 
gold,” said the giant’s little boy. 

“You don’t need to,” said the giant, “for there 
is none there. That is only a fairy story. Wait, 
I’ll show you.” 

So he stretched out his long arm as far as it 
would go and he reached away down to the end 
of the rainbow and he felt all around with his long 
fingers, and sure enough, there wasn’t a bit of gold 
there, for his hand came back empty. 

“It’s too bad,” said the giant’s little boy to 
Uncle Wiggily. “There is nothing there for you. 
But perhaps you will find your fortune to-morrow. 
Come and stay with me until morning.” 

So Uncle Wiggily went back to the giant’s house, 
and the next day quite a surprising adventure 
occurred to him, and in case the gasoline in my 
motorboat doesn’t wash all the paint off my red 
necktie I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and 
Grand-daddy Longlegs. 


190 



STORY XXXI 

UNCLE WIGGILY AND DADDY LONGLEGS 

U NCLE WIGGILY got up early the morning 
after the good giant had shown him that 
there wasn’t any gold at the end of the 
rainbow. The old gentleman rabbit looked where a 
place had been set for him at the table, but alas 
and alack a-day, the table was almost as high from 
the floor as the church steeple is from the ground, 
and Uncle Wiggily could not reach up to it. 

“Hum, let’s see what we will do,” spoke the 
papa giant. “I know, I’ll get a spool of thread 
from the lady giant next door, and that will 
answer for a table for you, Uncle Wiggily, and you 
can use another toothpick for a chair.” 

So while the boy giant went for the spool of 
thread, the papa giant served Uncle Wiggily’s 
breakfast. First he brought in a washtub full of 
milk and a bushel basket full of oatmeal. 

“What is that for?” asked the rabbit in surprise. 
“That is for your breakfast,” was the answer. 
191 


Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


“Isn’t it enough? Because I can get you more in a 
jiffy, if you want it.” 

“Oh, it is entirely too much,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “I can only take a little of that oatmeal.” 

“Very well, then, I will take this myself, and get 
you a small dish full,” spoke the papa giant, and 
he ate all that oatmeal and milk up at one mouth¬ 
ful, but even then it was hardly enough to fill his 
hollow tooth. 

Then the boy giant came back with the spool, 
which was as big as the dining-room table in a rab¬ 
bit’s house. Up at this new table the traveling 
uncle sat, and he ate a very good breakfast indeed. 

“Now I must start off again to seek my fortune,” 
he said, as he took his crutch, striped red, green 
and yellow, like a cow’s horn. Oh, excuse me! I 
was thinking of circus balloons, I guess. Anyhow 
Uncle Wiggily took his crutch and valise, and, as 
he was about to start off, the boy giant said: 

“I will walk along a short distance with you, 
and in case any bad animals try to hurt you I’ll 
drive them away.” 

“Oh, I don’t believe any one will harm me,” spoke 
the rabbit, but nevertheless something did happen 
to him. As he and the boy giant were walking 
along, all of a sudden there was a noise from be¬ 
hind a big, black stump, and out jumped a big, 
192 



Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


black bear. He rushed right at the rabbit, and 
called out: 

“Ha! Now I have you! I’ve been waiting a long 
while for you, and I thought you’d never come. 
But, better late than never. Now for my dinner! 
I’ve had the fire made for some time to cook you, 
and the kettle is boiling for tea.” He was just 
going to grab our Uncle Wiggily, when the giant’s 
little boy called out: 

“Here, you let that rabbit alone! He’s a friend 
of mine!” But, listen to this, the bear never 
thought a thing about a boy giant being with Uncle 
Wiggily, and he never even looked up at him. Only 
when the bear heard the giant’s boy speaking he 
thought it was distant thunder, and he said: 

“Oh, I must hurry home with that rabbit be¬ 
fore it rains. I don’t like to get wet!” 

“Yes, I guess you will hurry home!” cried the 
giant’s boy, and with that he reached over, and he 
grabbed that black, ugly bear by his short, stumpy 
tail and he flung him away over the tree tops, 
like a skyrocket, and it was some time before that 
bear came down. And when he did, he didn’t 
feel like bothering Uncle Wiggily any more. 

“Now I guess you’ll be all right for a while on 
your travels,” said the boy giant as he called 
good-by to the old gentleman rabbit. “Send me a 
souvenir postal when you find your fortune, and 
193 



Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


if any bad animals bother you, just telephone for 
me, and I’ll come and serve them as I did the bear.” 

Then the old gentleman rabbit thanked the boy 
giant, and started off again. He traveled on and 
on, over hills and down in little valleys, and across 
brooks that flowed over green mossy stones in the 
meadow, and pretty soon Uncle Wiggily came to 
a big gray stone in the middle of a field. And, as 
he looked at the stone, the old gentleman rabbit 
saw something red fluttering behind it, and he 
heard a noise like some one crying. 

“Ha! Here is where I must be careful!” ex¬ 
claimed the rabbit to himself. “Perhaps that is a 
red fox behind the stone, and he is making believe 
cry, so as to bring me up close, and then he’ll jump 
out and grab me. No indeed, I’m going to run 
back.” 

Well, Uncle Wiggily was just going to run back, 
when he happened to look again, and there, in¬ 
stead of a fox behind the stone, it was a little boy, 
with red trousers on, and he was crying as hard as 
he could cry, that boy was. 

“What is the matter, my little chap?” asked the 
rabbit kindly. “Are you crying because you have 
on red trousers instead of blue? I think red is a 
lovely color myself. I wish I had red ears, as well 
as red eyes.” 

“Oh, I am not crying for that,” said the little 
194 



Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


boy, wiping away bis tears on a big green leaf, 
“but you see I am like Bo-peep, only I have lost 
my cows, instead of my sbeep, and I don’t know 
where to find them.” 

“Oh, I’ll help you look,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“I am pretty good at finding lost cows. Come, we’ll 
bunt farther.” So off they started together, Uncle 
Wiggily holding the little boy by one of his paws— 
one of the rabbit’s paws, I mean. 

Well, they looked and looked, but they couldn’t 
seem to find those cows. They looked at one hill, 
and on top of another hill, and down in the hol¬ 
lows, and under the trees by the brook, but no cows 
were to be seen. 

“Oh, dear!” cried the little boy, “if I don’t find 
them soon there’ll be no milk for dinner.” 

“And I am very thirsty, too,” said the rabbit. 
“I wish I had a drink of milk. But where in the 
world can those cows be?” and he looked up into the 
sky, not because he thought the cows were there, 
but so that he might think better. Then he looked 
down at the ground, and, as he did so he saw a 
little red creature with eight long legs, and the 
creature wiggled one leg at the rabbit friendly-like 
as if to shake hands. 

“Why don’t you ask me where the cows are?” 
said the long-legged insect. 

“Why, can you tell?” inquired Uncle Wiggily. 

195 



Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


“Of course I can. I’m a grand-daddy longlegs, 
and I can always tell where the cows are,” was the 
reply. “Just you ask me.” 

So Uncle Wiggily and the little boy, both to¬ 
gether, politely asked where they could find the 
cows, and the grand-daddy just pointed with one 
long leg off toward the woods where the rabbit and 
boy hadn’t thought of looking before that. 

“You’ll find your cows there,” said grand-daddy 
longlegs, and then he hurried home to his dinner. 
And Uncle Wiggily and the boy went over to the 
woods, and there in the shade by a brook—sure 
enough were the cows, chewing their gum—I mean 
their cuds. And they were just waiting to be driven 
home. 

So Uncle Wiggily, and the boy with the red 
trousers, drove the cows home, and they were 
milked, and the old gentleman rabbit had several 
glasses full—glasses full of milk, not cows, you 
know. Goodness me! A cow couldn’t get into a 
glass could it? I guess not! 

And after that Uncle Wiggily- 

Well, but see here now. I think I’ve put enough 
adventures about Uncle Wiggily in this book, and 
I must save some for another one. So I think 
I will call the following book “Uncle Wiggily’s 
Travels,” for he still kept on traveling after his 
fortune you know. And he found it, too, which is 
196 




Uncle Wiggily and Daddy Longlegs 


the best part of it. Oh, my yes! He found his for¬ 
tune all right. Don’t worry about that. And in 
the next book, the very first thing he did, was to 
have an adventure with a red squirrel-girl, who 
was some relation to Johnnie and Billie Bushytail. 

So that’s all there is to Uncle Wiggily, for a little 
while, if you please, but if you want to hear any¬ 
thing else about him I’ll try, later on, to tell you 
some more stories. And now, dear children, good¬ 
bye. 


THE END. 


197 



BOOKS BY HOWARD R. GARIS 


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